Fishy deal KOd
P.R. kills $300M power pact with 2-person biz
PUERTO RICO’S power authority on Sunday canceled its controversial, $300 million contract with a small Montana company to rebuild the island’s power lines after Hurricane Maria.
Ricardo Ramos, head of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, said the deal with Whitefish Energy would cease once the firm’s current work is finished.
The announcement came as the authority, also known as PREPA, faced mounting pressure from officials to cancel the deal.
Now that it is, Ramos said, restoring power lines on the U.S. territory could be delayed by 10 to 12 weeks.
Gov. Ricardo Rossello earlier Sunday called on PREPA to sever ties with Whitefish.
“There cannot be any kind of distraction that alters the commitment to restore electrical power as soon as possible in Puerto Rico,” he said.
Multiple questions have arisen since PREPA inked the deal with the company, based out of Whitefish, Mont., hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Whitefish only had two fulltime employees when Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico in September as a Category 4 hurricane. It has since added roughly 300 workers to its effort.
Rossello said Sunday that Whitefish has been paid at least $8 million until this point.
“If something illegal was done, once again, the officials involved in that process will feel the full weight of the law, and I will take administrative actions,” the governor said Sunday.
A Whitefish representative said the company was “very disappointed in the decision by Gov. Rosello.” “The decision will only delay what the people of Puerto Rico want and deserve — to have power restored quickly in the same manner their fellow citizens on the mainland experience after a natural disaster,” the statement said. New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito has slammed Rosello’s response to the storm and the contention that Rosello didn’t know about the Whitefish contract. “The No. 1 task, the priority right now in Puerto Rico, is to get the electricity up and running,” Mark-Viverito, who grew up on the island, said during a Sunday appearance on MSNBC. “And to say that a $300 million contract, which has as a responsibility to put the electrical grid back on, he knew nothing about, that’s hard to believe.”
Mark-Viverito also said Rosello defended the Whitefish contract just days ago.
“I unfortunately believe that the governor is inept at the moment,” Mark-Viverito said.
A search of Rosello comments found none in which he indicated prior knowledge about problems with the contract.
Both Zinke — whose son worked at the company for a summer — and the White House have said they didn’t play a role in the contract.
Whitefish didn’t go through a formal bidding process to get the contract. PREPA’s leaders said it signed the contract two days before Maria hit, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency signed off on that.
Line items on the contract called for $20,277 for a Chinook helicopter airlift and $3,969 for a passenger chopper, according to a copy obtained by a Daily Beast reporter.
I unfortunately believe that the (Puerto Rico) governor is inept at the moment. New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (below)