Despite IDB loans for sector, Dominican circuits burn

Santo Domingo.- Inter-American Development Bank representative in the Dominican Republic Miguel Coronado, on Tues. stated concern over what he says is the long time it takes to execute the multilateral’s loans to the country, a lag that has forced him, on occasions, to leave without effect, the financing to address urgent issues, such as childcare.

“My karma is here to move them and approve them (the loans) first. Between the time I prepare and it comes into effect, almost a year and a half, two years.”

“I have loans from two years ago in the electricity sector, in education and in agriculture. The saddest of this is early childhood. I arrived here in 2018 and there was already a loan approved in 2016 of 200 million dollars to strengthen the entire care network for infants from one to five years old (…) There was no human power to move it to Congress. It was my turn in 2018 or 2019 to cancel that loan.”

Interviewed by Diario Libre, the IDB representative revealed that there is an agreed loan for technical-vocational training, “but we have it trapped because they have not sent it to Congress.”

The same has occurred with financing for changes in electrical circuits and substations for Edesur. “Two years I have it approved. The circuits are there burning,” he said.

He added that the electricity crisis must be resolved soon, along with other challenges facing the country. “To think that we are in this century and that we are still with that bad service, that bad quality.”