Puerto Rico's problems won't be solved if they fire the help

Next time someone complains about how long it is taking to get things resolved in Puerto Rico suggest to that the problems are both self-inflicted by the Government of Puerto Rico and by politicians in Washington who put political nonsense ahead of getting problems solved..

I've taken an interest in the story about the Montana firm hired to help restore power in Puerto Rico because it hits close to where I live and today the Government of Puerto Rico cancelled the contract of that Montana firm. I just have to share some observations.

We've heard stories of people dying and of the suffering in Puerto Rico that have taken place since the Hurricane hit. By all news accounts, the lack of power is a significant contributor to the lack of progress in efforts to fix things down there. In fact, today's news articles say that 70% of Puerto Rico's population is without power.

The Montana company has 100 people on the ground right now, fully provisioned - they have all the tools they need, they have shelter, they have food and water, etc. Those people were making good progress toward restoring power at key sites.

So what does cancelling this contract do? From a story on the CNBC website:

"Ricardo Ramos, the CEO of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) noted that cancelling the contract may set back power restoration efforts an additional 10 to 12 weeks."

Great - supposedly people are dying and lack of power is a major contributor and the solution is to fire a contractor that has feet on the ground and set back efforts to restore power by 10 to 12 weeks.

The Governor of Puerto Rico has moved quickly after the cancellation of the contract. The first thing he is doing is to appoint a bureaucrat to oversee how the power company is spending money, because adding layers of bureaucracy always speeds things up, as does setting up the possibility of conflicts between the company and the bureaucrat over how to spend money.

By most news accounts, the Puerto Rico power company has been badly run for quite some time and some government oversight was probably needed for a while. But why now? Why when you're in a crisis and need to move fast? And why add to the complexity of procurement instead of simplifying the process of procurement?

The next thing the Governor did was establish mutual aid agreements with New York and Florida to get replacement workers from those States. That's great. But why didn't he do that the day after the Hurricane hit. Or in the days before the Hurricane hit when they knew it was coming?

As a result of outcome is that NY Governor Cuomo is now going in front of the cameras proclaiming that NY will have 28 people on the ground in early November. If he was adding 28 people to existing efforts that would be great. But that's not what's happening, instead Puerto Rico will get 28 people in November to replace 100 who are being fired today. How is that better?

Reminds me of the Popeye cartoons when Wimpy would say" I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." Here Governor Cuomo is saying "I'll gladly provide you help in November for press coverage today."

At this point, if I hear of problems in Puerto Rico I place the blame squarely at the Puerto Rican Government and the politicians. Their poor leadership helped create the problems and their continued poor leadership, as evidenced here, is retarding the efforts to undo the problems.

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