The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is sounding an alarm over Puerto Rico's $300 million contract with a small Montana company to restore power infrastructure, amid concerns over the firm's tiny staff and lack of competitive bidding. FEMA will be responsible for paying for the work by Whitefish Energy Holdings, but the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the island's utility, entered into the contract. "Based on initial review and information from PREPA, FEMA has significant concerns with how PREPA procured this contract and has not confirmed whether the contract prices are reasonable," FEMA said in its statement.
[...] The Whitefish deal has raised alarm among Puerto Rico's leadership, Congress and others, and two congressional committees are investigating it. The contract was reached with no bidding. The company had two employees and little experience in utility work prior to Hurricane Maria hitting the island and is paying workers hundreds of dollars per hour.
The White House said Friday the federal government had no involvement in the decision to award a $300 million contract to help restore Puerto Rico's power grid to a tiny Montana company in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown.
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president had asked Zinke about the contract and that the cabinet secretary said he had nothing to do with it. "He had no role in that contract," Sanders said of Zinke. "This was a state and local decision made by the Puerto Rican authorities and not the federal government."
Also at NPR.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:49PM
I take it, then, that you have worked in construction? You've worked for the likes of Brown and Root (before it became Kellog, Brown and Root) or some other serious construction company? Maybe you've even run such a company?
Funny you should mention splitting it up by region. I was thinking that those two men, with all of their kin and friends, MIGHT be able to handle a couple villages. Not the entire island of Puerto Rico. No, they couldn't hand any city, either. A small town, maybe.