The company hired to repair Puerto Rico’s electrical grid stopped working Monday over $83 million in unpaid bills while some utility crews from the mainland U.S. quit the half-finished reconstruction job altogether, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A Whitefish Energy Holdings LLC spokesman said that the company suspended its work after Puerto Rico’s public power company delayed making payments under a controversial $300 million contract to rebuild power lines damaged by Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico canceled the deal with Whitefish last month on orders from Gov. Ricardo Rosselló amid a political furor over how the contract was awarded and priced. But Whitefish had been scheduled to remain working until Nov. 30 when its contract terminated. With invoices piling up, four Florida-based utilities working as Whitefish subcontractors have now elected to leave Puerto Rico rather than continue under new agreements with the public utility known as PREPA. Read more. (Subscription required.)
In related news, Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy and the crippling blow of Hurricane Maria won’t deprive the government’s employees of their Christmas bonuses, Bloomberg News reported. Governor Ricardo Rosselló said yesterday that he would cover the payments, despite the financial strains that have been made even more severe since the September storm caused much of the economy to grind to a halt. Both the government and businesses are required to pay such bonuses under a decades-old Puerto Rican law, providing a year-end boost that workers have come to rely upon. “Our public employees have done an admirable job for the recovery of the island,” Rosselló said in a statement. "Without them the job would be impossible, and we should make good on their Christmas bonus on time.” The bonuses became a source of conflict between Rosselló and the island’s federal oversight board earlier this year, when the panel pressed the governor to end the practice if he couldn’t cut spending elsewhere to cover the cost. When the governor ignored the recommendation, the board sued, only to withdraw the suit after the hurricane so legal fighting wouldn’t distract from recovery efforts. Read more.
