Electricity Pact is signed and opens the way to reforms
The Electricity Pact signature was finally signed after years of discussion between the public and private sectors.
The document condenses a series of principles on what should be the management of the electricity sector.
The Electricity Pact defines a strategic and business plan that opens the door to a profound reform of the sector that includes the Electrical Distribution Companies (EDEs) subcontracting to other companies to handle the collection of bills from their clients. To accomplish this, the Superintendency of Electricity has a period of 12 months to establish the conditions that allow EDEs to outsource billing.
The agreement defines loss reduction goals and service billing expectations, as well as periodic rate reviews. However, the schedule of loss and collection goals must be readjusted because it was left behind due to the delay in signing the document.
For business representatives, the Electricity Pact constitutes a route to solve the problems that affect the sector, but its signature does not imply that the Dominican State will immediately put an end to the blackouts.
President Luis Abinader declared during the signing of the document that “the pact is not perfect” and admitted that he disagrees with some points of it.
“This pact is not perfect. I even disagree with some parts that I would like us to advance further. But that is possible and, as Minister Almonte explained, the points that we had objected to are already being applied as a government”, he said.
He expressed that the points that are not in the Electricity Pact have already been assumed by the government since he came to power.
“What we wanted in the past was the elimination of the CDEEE, which we are doing, as is the elimination of the councils, as is the case of the audits of the EDEs, as is the contracting of audits for the EDEs and for Punta Catalina. We were not opposed to the pact, we were opposing those points of the pact that we are making”.
Abinader stressed that the pact will allow solving fiscal problems because the deficit of the electricity sector is responsible for half of the debt that the country has contracted.