DR1: Government Electricity Trap

Jose Luis Moreno San Juan, director of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) Institute of Energy has told Hoy newspaper that the electricity authorities are trapped in a network between market agents and international organizations.
Moreno said that there is an oligopoly lead by a generation company that causes market agents to send notes to international organizations so these can become the indications that the Dominican government and the energy sector authorities prescribe for the Dominican electricity problems.
He recommended a long-term, 20-year power plan that needs to be accepted by all political parties so that every time there is a change of government, the plans can continue to be implemented. He said the first step is to make the generation costs transparent, and that the electricity rate needs to be based on these. The second step, says Moreno, is to apply a techni! cal tariff, so that consumers who pay for the service receive it at a due price, without having to bear the burden for non-paying users. He said that the theft of electricity is the responsibility, first of the distributors who in the framework of capitalization accepted the responsibility for combating theft, and in second place, of the government, that tolerates the situation. Moreno told Hoy newspaper that the third step is to improve collection rates. "But if we stay only in the topic of collecting payments for energy, as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American development Bank want, to not affect the interests of their friends and related companies that are the generation companies, then the problem will never be resolved," he said. He understands that the power problem is not due to generation costs, but results from inflated prices in the sale of these. He said that the government has not had enough authority to make the generation cost! s more transparent.