WASHINGTON, D.C. – After a nearly six-billion dollar critical energy contract was canceled in Puerto Rico over alleged forgery, members of Congress are demanding answers from energy officials. The contract was supposed to help power the island over the next ten years. Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner said he’s demanding answers from the government of Puerto Rico on how this happened and is pursuing accountability.
In mid-August the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (FOMBPR) announced that their members voted to revoke the approval of the power generation contract between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and Power expectations LLC, Enchanted Rock LLC, and Reyes Contractor LLC. The contract was terminated over allegations of a forged signature.
The FOMBPR said Enchanted Rock was supposed to be the provider of the equipment to help deploy, install, operate, and maintain temporary power generation units with an aggregate capacity of 400 megawatt (MW).
We’re told Power Expectations and Reyes Contractor brought in Enchanted Rock, with a person identified as “Jhoby Weaks” described as the “COO-Caribbean Operations” signing the energy contract on Enchanted Rock’s behalf. However, we’re told soon after Enchanted Rock informed the Government of Puerto Rico that it had not signed the contract and “Johby Weaks” was not an Enchanted Rock employee, and that its signature had been forged.
The FOMBPR said this in a press release: “According to the Third-Party Procurement Office (3PPO), which manages the procurement process, Power Expectations lacked financial capacity and the technical expertise to perform the contract without Enchanted Rock. Since Enchanted Rock stated it is not involved in the process, the procurement is irreparably impaired.”
“There’s strong evidence that they forged their signature on a 5.9 billion dollar temporary energy generation contract and there’s strong evidence that the government knew and the government tried to hide it from the public and tried to clean up their mess,” said Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner, Pablo Jose Hernandez. “I think this is scandalous.”
In early September, Hernandez along with a couple of US Senators and Ranking Members on the House Oversight Committee and Committee on Natural Resources, sent a request for information to the government of Puerto Rico looking for answers on who authorized these contracts and what agencies knew during the process.
“This is terrible in two respects; It’s terrible because of the corruption and it’s terrible because of the direct consequences it has for the people,” said Hernandez. “We have insufficient energy generation. We need emergency generation capacity for the summer for the peak season and we’re not getting it. We’re not getting it through the corruption, we’re not getting it through the fraud, and real people are suffering as a result.”
We reached out to the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, the main liaison between the island the US mainland for comment but did not hear back.
