Santo Domingo.- State-owned power companies (CDEEE) executive vice president Celso Marranzini on Thursday said he found a “enormous financial disaster” in the entity, a problem he called more serious than can be imagined.

He said the CDEEE’s basic problem in administrative terms isn’t the payroll, “since that can be solved with administrative measures.”

Interviewed by newspaper El Nacional chief editor Radhamés Gomez Pepín, the official said since he took the post he’s been evaluating the CDEEE’s real situation, to then adopt measures to recover it.

He cited as example that the CDEEE is up-to-date only in advertising expenses. In that regard he thanked the Dominican Petroleum Refinery, which “opened its credit to us when we were appointed here, despite our debt with them, which was quite considerable, which we’ve been able to pay barely 48 percent.”

In an analysis of the electrical system’s situation Marranzini said the main problem isn’t generation, and instead that customers don’t pay for the service, including energy theft.

“It’s an erroneous concept that those who pay the energy pay for those who don’t. That’s not true. What we do pay is a very expensive energy, as a result of the contracts,” he said and noted that the CDEEE is the company of the emergencies, “because we have to buy something all the time that costs double because we have an emergency.”