Dominican Republic watchdog smells a fish in power pact

Santo Domingo.- Dominican Anticorruption Alliance -ADOCCO- director Julio Cesar de la Rosa Tiburcio on Friday warned that the Electricity Pact basically seeks to privatize generation, power lines and the distribution of energy.

He said the Pact would include areas not affected by the Privatization Law which he affirms stripped Dominican taxpayers of a valuable asset. "Instead of solving the electrical problem what it did was aggravate it, where the only beneficiaries are private power companies which have been granted privileges that the Pact aims to expand."

"The ambitions of privatization protected by the announced and initiated Electrical Pact includes hydroelectric power and coal plants which the Dominican State builds, for which it took large loans for the power lines, the percentage retained by the State in energy generation and distribution that were later recovered from the failure of its operations by the privatizers of that time," De la Rosa said.

"It’s no coincidence, De la Rosa notes, that some of the Pact’s announced team’s members are the same ones who headed the privatization of public companies.”

In a statement, the head of ADOCCO also warned that the Pact’s privatization hydroelectric power will included the privatization of water, “for the privatizers to grow broaden their fortunes, which would result in the disappearance of water utilities and aqueduct agencies across the country.