Country is close to losing it

[NewsWhore]

The 18-hour blackouts are punishing the country, making everyone uncomfortable. The business community says it can't take it any more, and in the streets, some people get angry when asked about the situation. There are reports of blackouts lasting for up to 18 hours from the capital to the greater part of the Cibao. According to the president of the National Association of Young Entrepreneurs (ANJE) Pablo Piantini, the country cannot go on in this way and he demanded a definitive solution to the crisis in the sector. He said, "We are affected beyond measure, as citizens, because it affects our quality of life, and as businesspeople, because production capacity is lost." He added that moreover, even businessmen who have emergency generators have to spend a large amount of resources on maintenance, fuel and machinery, resources that cannot be invested, therefore, in plans for developing the business. Piantini said, "Definitely the electric system can not continue in this way, and without doubt, these situations are always going to be with us if we do not find a definitive solution, and that solution is to charge for service, reinvest resources in the sector, improve transmission lines and generation." On Sunday, total electricity generation was 993 megawatts in the face of a demand estimated at 1,477 megawatts, which is a deficit of 33%, according to a report from the Superintendent of electricity. In an interview with reporters from Diario Libre, Manuel Mora, a store clerk at the Los Hermanos de la Fe mini-market, said more or less the same thing: "The power situation is terrible, we only get three or four hours per day. We fill the freezer with beer on Friday and we haven't sold one, because they are warm, the meat goes bad half the time, besides which we have to buy more fuel for the generator". Maria Isabel Rodriguez, from the Ilusion Beauty Salon, also complained of the "worst" electricity service ever, and said that in order to stay open she has to spend as much as RD$1,200 on fuel, money that she sometimes doesn't recoup by doing clients' hair. The collapse of the electricity service is intensely felt in Santiago too, where some barrios get 18-hour blackouts, with the most affected on the outskirts, which do not have the so-called 24-hour circuits. Owners of mini-markets, supermarkets, cafeterias and butcher shops all say that their products go bad as a result of the blackouts, because they do not have emergency generators. An official delegation from the CDEEE traveled to Mexico on Sunday to talk with officials from the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) about the possibility of a project for electricity in the Dominican Republic. The project consists of the installation of a coal-fired thermoelectric generator, with options for financing from the Mexican government, as part of the facilities offered through the San Jose Agreement.

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