The Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT) asked the Senate of the Republic to reject the approval by the Chamber of Deputies of the trust to hand over to the private sector, the administration of the Punta Catalina Thermoelectric Power Plant for 30 years.
According to the organization, this provision is contrary to the Constitution, the public interest and alienates the heritage of the Dominican people, for which it warned that this could cause a social outbreak.
Justice and Transparency noted that there is a wave of privatization disguised as public-private alliances.
The president of the foundation, Trajano Potentini, regretted the actions of the Chamber of Deputies, when approving the aforementioned contract, with 102 votes present in the hemicycle from a registration of 190 deputies, with a “convenient and significant absence”.
Potentini pointed out as a great disturbance that the contract approved by the deputies empowers the so-called Technical Committee, made up of 5 individuals, almost entirely from the private electricity sector, with interests and businesses in it, to authorize and approve the incorporation of individuals or legal entities to make investments in the Punta Catalina trust.
According to Potentini, this means that they will be able to continue selling and privatizing the thermoelectric plant.
Potentini stated that the aforementioned committee, directed and chaired by the former administrator of the CDEEE, Celso José Marranzini Pérez, and José Luis Actis, Noel Báez Paredes, George Ángel Reinoso Núñez and John A. De Armas, will have all the powers to secretly, privately and discretely, for the next 30 years bidding for jobs, hiring staff, selling shares, setting prices and selling energy, in short, “have everything related to the management of Punta Catalina at ease, as owners, masters and lords,” says a statement from the organization.
Lower cost
Another disturbance is constituted by the fact that with this trust a price of only 2,340 million dollars is recognized lower than the reality of the cost, today estimated at more than 3,000 million dollars; in addition to the shielding and guarantee of impunity with which they shelter this questioned heritage of the Dominican people, the note adds.
“We call on the Senate not to approve this nonsense, which would lead to secrecy and without any social derision the management of Punta Catalina, given in a misnamed public trust, a figure fundamentally conceived for activities of a private nature, with a flexible structure , and we reiterate outside the controls of transparency and accountability of the State “, concludes Potentini.
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