Who’s paying for electricity?

In an attempt to stay connected to life in the D.R. I have been checking in with my friends there whenever I have a little extra cash, listening to Spanish music all the time and  trying to stay up to date on D.R. news. Something that surprised me in one of the past news updates is that Dominicans pay taxes that go towards electricity. The paper reported that Dominicans are paying for electricity, which is calculated in the 16% ITBIS tax. "When people say they do not pay for electricity, it is only that they think they are not paying for it," as reported in Hoy. "But they pay for the service when they buy beer, milk or rice. A third of the tax that they pay everyday covers the electricity that they steal." 
So I guess I’ll no longer say that Dominicans living in barrios are “stealing” electricity. Actually, in the barrio where they seemingly pay a very minimal amount for electricity, they probably pay a lot in the taxes being that they consume a huge amount of rice, beer and milk.

Haitians in the D.R.

 
DR1 Daily News -- Wednesday, 27 October 2010
http://www.dr1.com

57,000 more illegal Haitians
Statistics released by the Department of Migration show that after the 12 January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, some 57,119 Haitians who crossed the border to the DR on market days have stayed on in the country illegally. A spokesman for the department told Diario Libre that the figure probably does not even account for 50% of those who have entered illegally. The Migration Department says that 83 inspectors have been dismissed in the past 14 months for complicity with people smuggling, serious faults on the job, allowing the departure of people with legal exit restrictions, administrative corruption, forgery of documents or links to drug trafficking networks.