On April 28, Gov. Jenniffer González Colón withdrew the appointment of Antonio Ramos Guardiola as executive director of the Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service (PRITS). The announcement drew little attention amid the political fallout from the failed confirmation of Verónica Ferraiuoli as secretary of state.
But a document obtained by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) and not previously made public, reveals that three days before his removal, on April 25, Ramos Guardiola had rejected a contract for XUVO Technologies to manage the Health Department’s online system for licenses, permits and certifications.
Several sources confirmed to the CPI that this rejection, which went against the wishes of La Fortaleza (the Governor’s office) and Health Secretary Víctor Ramos, cost Ramos Guardiola his post at PRITS. On April 29, the day after he stepped down, PRITS —under the leadership of interim director Rubén Quiñones Milán, who was never officially appointed— approved the contract between XUVO and the Health Department.
That decision gave the company control of Salud Digital, the Health Department’s online platform for licenses and certifications that covers everything from cremations and burials to medical licenses, medical cannabis, and narcotics management.
Although the contract requires only a nominal $5 payment from the government, the deal is worth millions in potential revenue for XUVO, which collects service fees directly from users, according to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. For instance, each time a physician applies for a license to practice in Puerto Rico, XUVO charges $45 for the transaction.
Under the terms of the agreement, XUVO owns the software used by Salud Digital, while the government must separately cover the costs of Microsoft services that support the platform. Beyond adapting and maintaining the software and providing Health Department staff access, the contract does not specify what additional work XUVO performs for each transaction.
The CPI requested interviews with XUVO’s top executives, Félix Camacho Ramos and Pedro Santiago Rosado, but received no response. Ramos Guardiola also did not respond to questions on his departure from the government and his reasons for opposing the XUVO contract.
According to the document obtained by the CPI, the then-PRITS director rejected the contract because it conflicted with an ongoing procurement process launched in 2024 to develop a digital platform offering similar services, creating a duplication of efforts.
The day after the contract was approved, on April 30, the governor appointed Luis Rodríguez Vega as the director of PRITS. But by late June, just two months later, his appointment was also withdrawn.
González then named Martín Jiménez Morales as a recess appointee in July, but his appointment, too, was withdrawn on Sept. 9, leaving Deputy Director Poincaré Díaz in charge of PRITS.
In just nine months, the governor has cycled through at least five directors at PRITS.
González told the newspaper El Nuevo Día that she withdrew the appointment of Jiménez Morales because of “reservations” expressed by Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz. However, Rivera Schatz contradicted her, insisting he never asked for the withdrawal of Jiménez Morales or any other nominee.
When the CPI asked if Ramos Guardiola’s removal was tied to his rejection of the XUVO contract at the Health Department, Public Affairs Secretary Hiram Torres Montalvo said he did not recall the details of the former PRITS director’s departure.
“To my recollection, no. Each agency head has the freedom to make internal decisions within their agency without any kind of external pressure,” the governor’s spokesperson said.
“If he rejected [the XUVO contract], he must have had his reasons,” Torres Montalvo added. He also denied that Jiménez Morales’s recent departure was related to his reported refusal to sign government technology contracts, as El Nuevo Día had reported.
When asked if he could guarantee that the governor would not withdraw a nomination over a nominee’s refusal to sign a contract, he replied:
“I haven’t had that conversation with our governor, but what she asks is that things be done in compliance with the law. There are procurement processes where agency heads have discretion, and there are others that must go through established procedures,” the Public Affairs Secretary responded.
Photo provided | La Fortaleza
If there was evidence that Ramos Guardiola was removed to benefit a contractor, it could constitute criminal conduct under Puerto Rico law, even for a position of trust, a veteran former prosecutor told the CPI.
Torres Montalvo acknowledged that, because PRITS oversees “contracts worth many millions of dollars,” the office is a battleground for competing interests. “There is a lot of jockeying to secure this type of deal,” he said.
XUVO Technologies has been registered in Puerto Rico since 2013. The company’s website lists offices in San Juan and Peru. According to the Justice Department’s Lobbyist Registry, XUVO retains the services of Globalize LLC, the lobbying firm of Alfredo Escalera Maldonado.
Health Department Concealed PRITS Rejection
On March 13, the Health Department requested PRITS’ approval to contract XUVO. Because the contract involved technology, the law required PRITS’ authorization. That approval came on April 29.
Four days earlier, when Ramos Guardiola was still director, he had rejected the agreement because it conflicted with an active competitive process that PRITS and the Health Department had launched to develop a new digital platform for medical professional licenses. That rejection was recorded in the internal system used to track contract requests, according to the PRITS document obtained by the CPI.
But in its response to a public records request from the CPI, the Health Department did not include this document. It even certified that there were no other contract requests involving XUVO besides the one that was approved — a claim contradicted by the records PRITS later provided to the CPI.
The contract was approved on April 29, even though the competitive process in which XUVO had already been disqualified remained active until May 9, when it was canceled. PRITS confirmed the cancellation but declined to explain the reasons behind it.
As of press time, the Health Department had not responded to questions about why it withheld the rejected request signed by Ramos Guardiola or why it moved forward with a contract for a company that had already been disqualified from developing a similar tool.
Secures Contract Despite Having Been Disqualified
Since 2013, XUVO has held more than $20.5 million in government contracts and maintains similar agreements with the Puerto Rico Public Service Regulatory Board and the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA in Spanish). In 2021, the Office of the Inspector General flagged the latter contract for lacking legally required certifications, including burdensome clauses for the government, and for failing to undergo an adequate cost-effectiveness analysis.
“Under no circumstances should a contractor’s private interests prevail over —or in any way affect— the fundamental duty to guarantee citizens that their public funds are being used to provide quality service at the lowest possible cost,” the OIG said at the time.
Screenshot | OIG’s Facebook page
In the Health Department’s case, beyond being rejected by then-PRITS Director Ramos Guardiola, XUVO had been disqualified a year earlier in a competitive process for the licenses the Health Department issues. An external firm handled the technical evaluation.
After PRITS and the Health Department issued a “procurement notice” in March 2024, XUVO submitted a proposal in April for a new digital platform to manage the certifications and licenses the Health Department grants to medical professionals. Until then, these documents were obtained through Renovacionesonline.com.
From the outset, XUVO was eliminated from the competitive process for failing to meet technical requirements in its proposal, according to evaluation documents PRITS provided to the CPI.
The evaluation sheet for XUVO states the company “did not submit evidence of relevant certifications, client references, or case studies” in its proposal.
In November 2024, an evaluation committee selected Secure Health Information Technology Corp. for the project. But the platform was never developed because PRITS canceled the initiative after reversing Ramos Guardiola’s decision and approving XUVO’s contract, the office confirmed to the CPI.
On Jan. 13, 2025, two weeks after the change of administration, and despite having been disqualified, XUVO resubmitted its service proposal, this time addressed to the newly appointed health secretary, Ramos. The document, signed by company vice president Felix Camacho, promoted a web platform for physicians, residents, and businesses to process the licenses, certificates, and permits the Health Department issues.
In other words, it proposed to do what the existing Renovacionesonline.com platform already did — and, for medical professionals, the same service for which XUVO had been disqualified six months earlier.
Photo by Brandon Cruz González | Centro de Periodismo Investigativo
On Feb. 18, 2025, one month after receiving the proposal and before his confirmation, Ramos signed the justification to contract XUVO for his agency. Beginning in March 2025, he announced that XUVO would replace TecSecure, which had provided the service since 2014 through its Renovacionesonline.com platform.
At the time, Ramos said TecSecure needed to be replaced because it had been flagged “more than two years ago” by the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of the Comptroller, and PRITS for not sharing the data it handled with the Health Department.
However, Inspector General Ivelisse Torres said she never requested that TecSecure’s contract be canceled.
Contracts at DRNA and the Public Service Regulatory Board
This is not the first time XUVO has tried to secure the Health Department’s licenses and certifications business.
In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, TecSecure — the company that had been providing these services through its Renovacionesonline.com platform — sued the Health Department, alleging the agency was attempting to hire XUVO to deliver the same service.
After the lawsuit, the Health Department dropped the plan to contract XUVO and continued working with TecSecure and Renovacionesonline.com until 2025, when the switch was finally made.
In its three government contracts, XUVO operates on a contingency basis, charging fees for each transaction it processes, according to the agreements.
At the Energy Bureau, which is part of the Public Service Regulatory Board, the “convenience fee” is $10 per document filed — for instance, a complaint against LUMA, the private operator of Puerto Rico’s power grid.
On Aug. 1, just before the Trump administration removed six of its members, the Financial Oversight and Management Board requested information from the Puerto Rico government about XUVO’s contract. The fiscal board said the arrangement, in effect since May, requires its approval because it would exceed $10 million.
Considering the service fees the company collects, “the aggregate expected value of the Contract is considerably higher than the $5 that the Department shall pay to Xuvo in exchange for the user licenses and services provided,” the board wrote in a letter. In other words, although the official contract amount is only $5, the company could generate more than $10 million over its term through transaction fees, triggering the requirement for board approval.
The fiscal board told the CPI it made a second request for information from the Health Department and that the contract remains under review. If rejected, the board could demand its immediate cancellation, though it remains unclear what would happen to the money XUVO has already collected through service fees — its main source of revenue under the deal.
Since the launch of the new Salud Digital portal, both the Puerto Rico College of Physicians and a group of pharmacies have raised alarms about problems with the system that have affected the public, including delays in processing prescriptions for controlled substances.
This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.
