BY JOACHIM BAMRUD

SANTO DOMINGO – The Dominican Republic is expected to have Latin America’s second-highest economic growth this year, but the country remains one of the region’s worst countries in electricity service.

Blackouts remain common, especially in capital Santo Domingo.  The crisis especially impacts poor neighborhoods, but also several parts of the city are hit. Even the area where the presidential palace is located has seen several major blackouts the past year.

As a result, the economy is likely to lose a significant amount of lost productivity while local and foreign companies alike complain about the additional cost of investing in back-up generators and power plants. Meanwhile, companies and consumers alike lament the high costs of electricity, made even worse by the uneven supply.

“The electricity sector is probably the epitome of the badly functioning public services in the Dominican Republic,” The World Bank said in a recent report.  “Although the service has improved slowly in recent years, on average electricity service is not available 20 percent of the time.”

A typical Dominican company suffers from ...

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Keywords: ADIE, AES, CDEEE, CEPM, Danilo Medina, Hipolito Mejia, Inter-American Development Bank, Leonel Fernandez, Punta Cana, The World Bank