In repeat of Hurricane Maria aftermath, Puerto Rico is again spending big on infrastructure contractor with little history

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It is said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Which of those ultimately happens in Puerto Rico is yet to be determined, but one thing at least is clear: The Caribbean Island to which the U.S. sends tens of billions of dollars a year appears to still be struggling with cronyism and incompetence in its power sector.

Florida Politics first broke the national story of the Whitefish scandal in October 2017, in a story which combined the desperate need of an island population trying to recover from Hurricane Maria. Based on information uncovered by Florida Politics, the story is playing out all over again eight years later, but on a much larger scale. Worse, it is happening right under the noses of the supervisory bodies tasked with preventing a repeat.

With Gov. Jennifer Gonzalez-Colon having run on the promise of ending the rolling blackouts that blight the daily lives of Puerto Ricans, the island’s administration launched a tender for the supply of 800 MW of temporary emergency power in Puerto Rico. In a shocking parallel with Whitefish, the contract has been awarded (but not yet executed) to a tiny Florida-based company called Power Expectations with no history of delivering large scale energy projects.

As far as Florida Politics has been able to ascertain, Power Expectations, run by Eddie Echevarria, is an electrical company which provides residential power installations. Its website contains little to no information and industry insiders say it is completely unknown in the market. Echevarria himself appears to have no background in infrastructure projects and is a convicted felon that was sentenced to 30 months for assaulting a Florida police officer in 2015.

This company has been entrusted to construct a billion-dollar project which would see LNG delivered to Puerto Rico through a terminal that Power Expectations will need to construct, to feed a battery of turbines, supplying much needed electricity to the citizens of Puerto Rico. That LNG is apparently to be supplied by another unknown entity with no track record in the commodity industry: Swiss One Oil and Gas.

Technical planning and interactions with local grid operators have apparently been limited and late, taking place after the tender was awarded, and crucial equipment has yet to be sourced. And, this needs to be in place and in operation in just a few months.

This would not be the first time a major power project has failed to deliver on “energy czar” Josue Colon Ortiz’s watch — Puerto Rico’s Office of the Comptroller levelled accusations of mismanagement at him in relation to pipeline and power plant conversion projects in the past. Let see what investigations by the regulators and the PROMESA oversight board produce.

Many people are now questioning whether such a technically challenging and capital-intensive project can be delivered by companies without any obvious source of finance or experience. Rumors of backroom deals, cronyism and potential corruption are rife — in other words, Whitefish 2.0.

With the same story playing out, the main difference this time is the scale. Where Whitefish was awarded a $300 million dollar contract, based on figures provided by Colon Ortiz, annual payments to Power Expectations will be between $500 million and a cool billion.

Puerto Rico surely deserves better than for history to repeat itself. Let’s see if Florida Politics broke another national story!