Economy

The Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) — imposed by the federal government to enforce fiscal discipline over the Puerto Rico government and its agencies — has gone a year without publishing some of its members’ financial disclosure reports, as required by the federal PROMESA law. The board also has not published the financial disclosures of Gov. Jenniffer González, who is subject to the requirement as an ex officio, nonvoting member of the board.

Far from seeking its exit, the Fiscal Control Board is at its peak integration with the Puerto Rico government. At a time when each side has its interpretation of what PROMESA requires, it seems unlikely that the Board will leave on its terms.

The bureaucratic hurdles in visa processing, high costs of importing labor, and lack of affordable housing for agricultural workers have hindered the Department of Agriculture's initiative to address the challenge of harvesting coffee in the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico.

The Puerto Rico government named the Ramón Ruiz Arnau University Hospital (HURRA in Spanish) in Bayamón as the lead hospital on the island for critically ill patients affected by the new coronavirus, but just a few weeks ago, 23 of its isolation rooms awaited for funds to fix their negative pressure system. The latter helps […]

Michael Williams, a US businessman who lives in Puerto Rico and manages investment funds for two government agencies, could face trial by jury after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit accusing him of a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. The SEC is one of the regulators of the financial market in the United States. […]

Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner in Washington, Jenniffer González, is like the godmother of the Opportunity Zones in U.S. Congress. She claims as her achievement that the island was included in said investors’ exemption program, which is part of President Donald Trump’s tax reform. While states can only designate 25% of their census areas below the […]

The walk is led by Adrian Beales, an Australian sales director for Lifeafar, a company that offers real estate investment options for people from abroad. Behind him is a group of 20 investors. They left El Convento hotel on Cristo Street in Old San Juan after the second day of the 2019 Lifeafar Investors Conference: […]

A mural alongside Baldorioty de Castro Avenue in San Juan, near the exit to De Diego Street, reads nowadays, “¡Auditoría ya, mamabichxs! A ciegas no” (which roughly translates into “Audit Now, suckers! Don’t do it blindly”). Its message refers to Puerto Rico’s public debt: the island still waits for an audit of the billions of […]