Govt. gives generators US$30mn, promises more

The Dominican Republic government has given state power company CDEEE 1.14bn Dominican pesos (US$30.6mn) to give power generators as an advance for fuel purchases, President Hipolito Mejia announced Thursday, adding that he gave the government until the weekend to pay another 1.75bn pesos. Furthermore, Mejia has ordered finance secretary Rafael Calderon to accelerate talks with the World Bank for the speedy disbursement of a US$100mn power sector loan. The CDEEE is an intermediary between distributors and generators, but the devaluation of the peso has meant that distributors have not been able to maintain payments, leading to generators being unable to buy fuel to operate. The population's patience with regular power cuts is running very thin, and an end to interruptions was one of the principal demands of a 24-hour national strike on Tuesday, newspaper Listin reported. Meanwhile, newspaper Hoy reported that CDEEE will start operations by end-January of four projects in Samana and Maria Trinidad Sanchez provinces. The projects are a 150mn peso, 54km, 138kV transmission line between the two provinces, a 70MVA, 200mn peso substation at Nagua, and two substations in the city of Sanchez. The Nagua substation and the transmission line will interconnect the two provinces to the national grid.