Careo between Raúl Grijalva and Jenniffer González

Washington – The government of Puerto Rico and the Fiscal Oversight Board (JSF) pressed today on the power that Promesa must grant to the fiscal entity, in a hearing of the Natural Resources Committee of the United States House of Representatives convened to examine the impact of the emergency of coronavirus in the island’s fiscal crisis.

At the same time, committee members had a partisan battle for the hearing to take place remotely and even seeking to blame each other for the origin of the controversial statute.

Although the executive director of the JSF, Natalie Jaresko, acknowledged that the government of Wanda Vázquez Garced acted “promptly and decisively”, implementing a curfew, limiting entry points to the island and with an economic stimulus plan of $ 787 million “There is no denying that there have also been several setbacks” in the way he has dealt with the emergency.

Jaresko referred to the failed contracts for about $ 40 million for the acquisition of rapid tests, which in his opinion reflected how the government of Puerto Rico “is easily caught in its own poor acquisition practices despite the best intentions.”

The JSF went to court this week to claim from the Vázquez Garced government “all the documents” on those contracts. “We have asked for them seven times and we have not got them,” Jaresko said, when asked by Democrat Diana DeGette (Colorado).

Republican Bruce Westerman (Arkansas) questioned the representative of the governor of Puerto Rico at the JSF and at the hearing, Omar Marrero – executive director of the Financial Advisory Authority and Fiscal Agency (AAFAF) -, why the contracts with Apex General Contractors and 313 LLC were never submitted to the JSF before being granted.

Marrero said that “unfortunately” it was not done, because some “agencies” considered that these were purchase orders and that was not necessary.

In his written testimony, Marrero said that 1,000 pages of documents had already been delivered to the Board, but the prosecutor maintains that “some information is missing.”

At a time when the Puerto Rico Department of Labor has been unable to process applications for federal unemployment assistance and the Department of Natural Resources has just warned that due to early retirement it has only one employee for the maintenance of beaches in the metropolitan area. From San Juan, Jaresko indicated that early retirement programs approved by the island’s government have created significant gaps “in the island’s capabilities and functionalities, and put services at risk.”

He maintained that by reducing payroll the government has allowed the exit of “front line” workers.

The session was convened by the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Democrat Raúl Grijalva (Arizona), with the purpose of supervising the operation of Promesa during the fiscal crisis, prior to a voting session that should take place in the coming weeks on his bill to soften the statute.

As the session began, the first in the history of the full committee on the remote track, Republican Paul Gosar (Arizona), communicating from a car, asked to adjourn the hearing.

The Democrats, after an error in the vote of Nydia Velázquez (New York), managed to defeat the Republican motion to suspend the session, which had the support of the resident commissioner in Washington, Jenniffer González.

Grijalva was surprised that the representative of the people of Puerto Rico wanted to postpone a hearing on important issues for the island, to the point that she asked her directly.

Commissioner González, who was the minority’s spokesperson, was upset by the question and said she did it to, like her fellow Republicans, emphasize that the hearing should not have been a remote session. Like Republicans Tom McClintock (California) and Westerman, Gonzalez was brought into public view from the commission’s courtroom.

“If I’m in (Washington) D.C. to represent the people of the island, why the rest of Congress cannot do the same, “replied González, who previously described Grijalva’s efforts to reform the Promesa law as political” talking points “and criticized the forums he held without the minority participation.

Grijalva considered that the commissioner never answered the question.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rican Democratic Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez (New York) – who had the symptoms of the coronavirus – intervened to remember that the United States is still in an emergency, that it does not want anyone to face COVID-19 and will not put its personnel “at risk”.

Republican Minority Leader on the Natural Resources Committee Rob Bishop, Utah, who joined at the end of the session, criticized Grijalva’s questioning of Commissioner González about her vote for not holding the hearing. “You are a better person than that,” he said.

How did he advance The new day On Wednesday, Marrero focused his presentation on asking the committee that in any measure to reform Promesa, the language that allows the JSF to override the public policy of the elected government of Puerto Rico be eliminated.

“Despite our best efforts to minimize disagreements, the language and structure of Promesa, as adopted by Congress, allows the Board to blur the delimitation of power between the government and the Board,” Marrero indicated.

Among the JSF’s “undue interference” with government operations, Marrero highlighted the hiring of lobbyists in Washington, past efforts to control functions of the Electric Power Authority (PREPA), blocking special assignments to municipalities and definancing the operation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of Puerto Rico (WIPR) as part of the new fiscal plan certified on May 27.

He also alluded to the JSF’s request this week for the government of Puerto Rico to deliver all documents on contracts with the companies Apex General Contractors and 313 LLC to purchase evidence of COVID-19 and other medical supplies.

The representative of the governor alluded to the example given earlier in the process by the president of the JSF, José Carrión, to explain what the work of the fiscal entity should be, indicating that they should limit themselves to determining “the size of the room, while the government orders the furniture. ”

When he has gone to court to question the power of the JSF, the government of Puerto Rico, however, has lost, Jaresko stressed.

“Although we always collaborate in search of the best for the people of Puerto Rico, it is in that same interest that sometimes the Board must disagree with the Government and use the tools of Promise to advance its mandate,” said Jaresko.

The executive director of the JSF informed the Natural Resources Committee that due to the drop in collections caused by the coronavirus, they have postponed further cuts until fiscal year 2021-2022. Following Hurricane Maria, the 2020 earthquakes and the coronavirus pandemic, the “Puerto Rico economy will contract for the next five years.”

Marrero calculated that the government will close this fiscal year, which ends on June 30, with a deficit of $ 1.3 billion. Asked by Congresswoman DeGette (Colorado), Marrero said that so far they have only spent $ 300 million of the $ 2.2 billion allocated to the island to stabilize their fiscal situation for the coronavirus.

“The 2020 Fiscal Plan projects a government deficit from fiscal year 2032 onward, six years ahead of the 2019 Fiscal Plan of the Board, and a total primary surplus of approximately $ 8 billion between fiscal years 2020 and 2032, in compared to a projected surplus of approximately $ 23,000 million in the Fiscal Plan 2019. That is equivalent to a 65% decrease in the projected surplus, ”said Jaresko.

The director of the JSF maintained that the island can only recover from the crisis and recent natural disasters if it implements “structural reforms”.

For Jaresko, key reforms should include promoting labor participation through the local earned income credit (EITC) and food assistance; dramatically improve the educational system; facilitate business development; build a low-cost and reliable energy system; and prioritize capital investment with the federal funds that have been allocated to the island after hurricanes, earthquakes and the emergence of the coronavirus

In the face of Republican criticism, Grijalva closed the hearing, warning that the coronavirus emergency has not ended and that, as approved by the majority of the majority, he will continue the hearings by remote means, since he believes that Congress should not dedicate itself to approving measures.

“This is not about who is the most ‘macho’,” Grijalva said, on the insistence of the Republicans that the hearings be face-to-face. Commissioner González tried to intervene, to say that “I don’t want to be a male,” but there the transmission signal ended.

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