The president of the Dominican Federation of Merchants, Iván de Jesús García, denounced that the Electricity Distributors have not left the increases in the electricity tariff without effect, alleging that the merchants affiliated with that union are receiving their bills with increases that range between 200 and 300%.
De Jesús García affirmed that if President Luis Abinader had not intervened in the rate hike, the people would have taken to the streets, because the “abuse that the electricity distributors committed and are still committing has no end.”
He also added that “here they suspended and gave a credit of 150 and 200 pesos, and 800 pesos when they backed down the last increases that were small, but what they have not backed down is that, it is not true that people who he was consuming 5 thousand pesos in his business, now he is paying RD$20,000”.
Interviewed by Héctor Herrera Cabral on the D’Agenda program, the commercial leader added that they reduced that person by a thousand pesos, but that implies that he continues to pay a high rate.
He gave as an example the case of a butcher shop owned by one of the members of the Executive Committee of the Federation that he chairs, who paid 50,000 pesos, and his bill is still reaching him for 148 thousand pesos.
“They have gone, they have checked, they have measured, and they do not give him an answer, why did his bill triple when he has the same freezers in his commercial establishment”, lamented the commercial leader.
He explained that this business leader assured him that at the end of this year he will close the business, and 27 people will lose their jobs.
“Then when one adds the energy matrix in the Dominican Republic, really, those prices that we are paying, should not be, the inefficiency of the Edes, the people cannot pay it,” he clarified.
He criticized that “losses, according to the Electric Pact, at this point should be at 20 percent, and yet they exceed 30%, and that is part of the deficiencies of the Edes themselves that have not managed to reduce losses” .
“There is also talk of losses due to fraud, but I do not understand where the frauds are, because even in the most remote neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic, people no longer have access to a small light pole, they are already 40 feet high, instead of 20 feet, then the high voltage passes too high through the house, which necessarily requires specific technical brigades to be able to install or uninstall a client”, he explained.
He insisted that all that is being seen is the inefficiency of the electricity distributors that, if they are losing 50 percent due to technical losses and lack of collection, then that percentage is being applied to all customers who pay for the service.