The Mejia administration paid electric producer Cogentrix a sum of US$5.8 million yesterday with the aim of inducing the company to reignite one of its three plants and alleviate the national electric crisis. Finance Minister Rafael Calderon announced the transaction and said they hoped the cash-crunched electric generator of San Pedro de Macoris would be able to keep its plant running until the government handover on 16 August.
Calderon mentioned that the Cibao region would be receiving an increased supply over the next few days with the injection of 100MW of power from Haina and 125MW from the Itabo plant that is currently connected to Smith-Enron?s facilities. He expected these additions to considerably improve the electric situation there.
?I can assure you that in the next few days electric service will already be much better than what we have had in recent days,? said the minister upon leaving a meeting between President Mejia and the government?s economic team at the Presidential Palace. Calderon reiterated that the departure of the AES Dominicana plants from the national grid was due to a shortage of fuel at AES. While AES is demanding a RD$2-million payment from the government for unpaid bills, Calderon was quick to say that their lack of fuel was not the fault of the authorities. He declared his readiness to amicably reconcile the accounts between AES, the government and the public power utility, the CDEE.
In a communique, Calderon addressed the contentious situation between the government and the AES power producers: ?I suggest they go directly to the source of the information, the CDEE, to see who is in the right. There they will see the agreements made regarding the energy sold by the CDEE through AES and that the portion they must pay to the corporation by law exceeds RD$2 million.? Calderon said that if the accounts were reconciled, it would show that AES actually owes the government a sum of RD$65 million.