Vultures
circling the wreckage of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Irma
are closing in on a long-sought prize: the privatizing of the
island’s electric utility.
Puerto
Rico avoided the very worst of the storm, which darted just north of
the U.S. territory. But it didn’t escape unscathed. Following a
request from Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló, the White House declared a
state of emergency. Three people were killed and more than 1 million
were left without electricity in the storm’s wake.
The
fragile body responsible for that power is the Puerto Rico Electric
Power Authority, whose executive leadership warned ahead of the storm
that parts of the island could be left without electricity for up to
six months.
Thanks
to the change in the storm’s path and a crew of dedicated line
workers, Prepa, the island’s sole electricity provider, now expects
most towns to have their lights back on within two weeks and full
power within a month. As of Monday, more than 70 percent of homes had
already gotten electricity back.
But
once the lights are turned on, Puerto Rican households will face a
new threat.
“[The
investors] have the best sales pitch now,” Carlos Gallisá, a
former consumer representative on Prepa’s board of directors, told
The Intercept by phone from San Juan. “They have already
started, saying that only privatization will serve the people.”
For
struggling governments around the world, privatizing utilities has
come to be seen as a kind of get-rich-quick scheme, offering an
upfront infusion of cash to underfunded municipalities. Given Prepa’s
size and that of its debt — $9 billion — it has been a
long-standing target for privatizers, even before Congress passed the
Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act last
year to help rein in Puerto Rico’s mounting debt crisis.
The
blackout following Irma just added fuel to the fire. Days before Irma
hit, Rosselló emphasized that privatization is firmly on the table,
telling the New York Times that Irma “can become an opportunity
or another liability.” According to a Friday report from Reorg
Research, a trade publication for investors, creditors and members of
Puerto Rico’s federally appointed financial oversight board have
met with Prepa top brass in recent days to discuss a new
“transformation plan” aimed at privatizing major aspects of the
power authority. The two anonymous sources for the story claimed that
the plan could go so far as “breaking up” Prepa entirely, selling
pieces of the utility to various bidders.
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