News - Puerto Rico's governor: Cancel Whitefish contract http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/29/news/whitefish-puerto-rico-rossello/index.html The governor of Puerto Rico wants the island's power authority to "immediately" cancel its controversial contract with a small Montana-based utility company. At issue is a $300 million contract that was awarded to Whitefish Energy to help restore power to parts of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. Whitefish is only two years old and had few employees before Hurricane Maria hit. But it also is based in the small hometown of U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, which has raised questions. Zinke has said he had nothing to do with the contract. A White House spokesman told CNN the decision to give the contract to Whitefish was made exclusively by PREPA. "The White House is not aware of any federal involvement in the selection," White House spokesman Raj Shah said. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello on Sunday said questions raised around the contract are "interfering with everything" and the distractions are not helping Puerto Rico rebuild. Rossello also said he has asked the Office of the Comptroller for a detailed and thorough investigation about the contracting process that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority used to select Whitefish. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has launched a review of the deal. The inspector general plans to look into whether the appropriate process was followed by state-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, when it awarded the contract.
Citation needed for that claim. And it's not the same setup as WhiteFish, Cobra has 28 year experience in this field with more than 300 permanent employees, how can you compare that to WhiteFish.
Yep, the contract has been cancelled according to the news. Since Whitefish already had over 100 contractors onsite and working, I am wondering how much Puerto Rico Power is going to be paying in wind-down costs to send them home. I am also wondering who is going to restore the power on the Island since Cobra only had a dozen people on-site. Sounds like Puerto Rico Power folded under political pressure and has no backup plan. I wonder if most residents will even get power back by next summer - now that they kicked out the largest group of competent linemen who can help them out.
The issue earlier was the lack of bidders. Most companies do not want to bid on a contract from a power company that is likely to be bankrupt before the end of the year and not pay their bills.