From the CPI
The contract of a law firm that costs up to $ 1,245 per hour. The subcontracting of foreign companies such as Alumbra, Colorado, has been billed $ 1.3 million in a single month to make plans for the transformation of the energy system without having to go through a competitive process. As well as the first six invoices that LUMA, the company that manages the transmission and distribution network since June, sent to the Electricity Authority (AEE).
The public corporation does not have the capacity to revise the invoices in a transparent manner, denounced Robert Poe, member of the Juneau of the Government of the AEE, in a meeting of this body on December 16, 2020. His criticism surgeon should be heard Authorization for the Public Public Alliance (AAPP), which oversees the contract with LUMA, has not been allowed to analyze the totality of the documents to ensure that the guests are justified.
Similar statements have been made by the representative of the consumers before the Junta de Gobierno, the engineer Tomás Torres. In addition, in addition to its monthly fee rate of $ 5 million, LUMA collects a premium of $ 7.8 million and reimbursable guests, including the original register of work hours, purchase receipts and other information necessary for its evaluation.
The contract of the Canadian-state consortium LUMA is the development of a privatization process initiated by the administration of the former governor Ricardo Rosselló, despite the fact that the hurricane Maria destroys the electric power and the history of administrative fraud. LUMA’s executive chief executive, Wayne Stensby, and AAPP’s executive director, Fermín Fontanés, told the Center for Investigative Periodism (CPI) that this private public alliance will be included in the management of the electricity system and will be negotiated. local, in order to also benefit from the economic activity related to the transformation and recovery. But in the first six months of the scheme, this has not been the case, as is evident in the invoices.
Of the sales companies that most invoiced to LUMA during this period, only one is from Puerto Rico, the Vidor & Rodríguez insurance company, according to an analysis by the CPI.
In September, when LUMA billed the mayor amount of reimbursable guests (more than $ 5 million), local companies were contracted mainly for services that resulted in low billing compared to foreigners. For the first time, the highest bills from local business firms were the Triple-S insurer, with $ 26,000 and the BMA Group human resources consultant with $ 21,538.
“At this initial stage, LUMA is coming to Puerto Rico to launch its operation. For these are United States companies that are working with them, ”Fontanés said. Alleged that when completing the transition and the APP comience in June to administer the red, series when the local companies are contracted. “LUMA was not going to hide the money and he was going to do it all,” he said.
In addition to the low participation of local businesses, there are high costs of consulting and advocacy services. Francisco Cerezo, an executive of the DLA Piper multinational firm, which provided legal and administrative representation to LUMA, billed and passed $ 47,475 per 45 hours of service: $ 1,055 per hour. Hariett Lipkin, company of this company, invoiced $ 9,043 for 7.3 hours of work (less than one workday), ranging from $ 1,200 to $ 1,245 per hour. This tariff “giant giant pero is normal”, and that is “what cobra is this type of buffet”, added Fontanés.
Without embarrassment, this figure is much more than that, for example, the Proskauer Rose societies ($ 789 per hour), the state budget contract signed by the Tax Control Board to cover the cases of the Puerto Rican queer.
Aún sin pruebas de ahorros
In addition to the cost and reimbursable costs of the first six months of business services, Alumbra LLC appears as the subcontractor that has invoiced to LUMA. This professional engineering services company is based in Denver, Colorado. Registered to start negotiations in Puerto Rico in August 2020, Alumbra billed $ 4.7 million between July and December 2020 to create infrastructure plans, technology and processes, vegetation management, customer service, and redesign management.
“Hasta ahora no hay rendición de cuentas sobre los ahorros de LUMA”, sostuvo Cathy Kunkel, analyst del Instituto de Economía Energética y Análisis Financiero (IEEFA), in the course of 2015, its publication provided information on the bancarrota and the sistema eléctrico of laEE. “A theme that preoccupies LUMA will be dependent on a lot of contractors in short supply, companies that do not have Puerto Rico institutional knowledge”.
The company’s contract when the AEE searches for a way to pay off an accumulated debt of $ 18,000 million in bonuses, pensions, combustible purchases and payments on pay, among other things, and any restructuring process is completed in one .
The CPI asked Fontanés why it did not have a competitive process before the LUMA adj service contract adjudication, as well as being released at the AEE’s Junction meeting in December Jun. ‘Ellos [LUMA] there is a tray to the people who understand that it is the best, ”Fontanés indicated. “It’s the recipe that we’re selling to those of us who want to make it … We’re trying to trust in it,” he said.
LUMA’s invoices have a separate part and a variable host, which includes services and well-contracted services. In this, there are unique product products with market reconciliation in the market, such as the Workday Human Resource Management application ($ 985,428 invoiced up to now), which is used by large companies or other public universities. The services of the Alvarez & Marsal Corporate Performance Improvement Administrative Consulting firm, located in New York ($ 1.4 million billed now), are also included. U.S. Relocation Companions, de Virginia, the mud services for ejumivos and empleados of LUMA, $ 792,581.
They are hosted by the same companies that compose the LUMA consortium, like the Canadian ATCO and Tejana Quanta, through executive offices, aisles and hotels, among others.
Robert Poe, a member of the AEE’s Governor’s’ Council since Rosselló’s number in 2018, said he had a bureaucracy created by AAPP consultants working with invoices, which “has practically impossible imposition of variable invoicing” , según indicó en la reunion. “It’s a chore because the 120s and 17s require us to audition for things to do with our financial metrics. In the meantime, we have received scandalous petitions from AAPP consultants asking for permission with two days of anticipation. We can not take photos, we can not make copies ”, denounced.
We also mention that LUMA has been soliciting contracts for the purchase of printers and customer service applications that are billed as guests of the AEE and signed by its Executive Director, Efrán Paredes. Poe indicates that he opposes this type of guest that does not follow the purchase process that he has to complete the AEE, by which he applies for an exemption to the Junta de Control Fiscal. Poe indicates that this action is indispensable to avoid a complaint about the “bayonet herida” of the Junta de Control Fiscal, which since 2018 has required open processes of purchase in the public corporation.
The Chamber of Representatives and the Senate of Puerto Rico will present the principles of further resolutions to investigate the consortium, and Governor Pedro Pierluisi created a governmental committee to analyze this contract with the objective of enforcing it. The first meeting will take place on February 4 and the work plan will be established, informs a spokesperson for La Fortaleza.
Pierluisi met the 27th of January with Angel Figueroa Jaramillo, President of the Union of Electricians and Electricity Industry (UTIER) and his legal representative, the lawyer Rolando Emmanuelli, who will reiterate his petition to cancel the agreement.
LUMA is supported by a communication that the contract is final, final and enforceable for the parties, a statement of its ratification by the AEE Governor’s Union and the approval of the Junta de Fiscal, the Puerto Rico Energy Negotiator (ente regulator of the energy system) and the former governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vázquez.
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This note is published in Metro thanks to an alliance with the Center for Investigative Periodism. You can access the original AQUÍ version