Before a new contract was granted to Cobra Acquisitions, Tribble met with Zamot at the Fiscal Control Board’s office to discuss company-related matters. Executives from Cobra and Filsinger Energy Partners, who serves as an adviser to the Rosselló administration in the PREPA restructuring, also participated.
The world’s largest financial consulting firm leads the operations of Puerto Rico’s federally appointed Fiscal Control Board, as evidenced by emails obtained by the Center for Investigative Journalism. McKinsey also owns Puerto Rico bonds and is subject of various investigations, including one commissioned by the entity imposed by the federal PROMESA law.
Republican Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Mike Lee of Utah sought to keep secret their interest in the privatization of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), a government-owned corporation. Almost a month after Hurricane María destroyed the island’s energy grid, a representative of Sen. Flake began to send emails to Andrew Biggs, a conservative, pension expert who sits at Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Control Board (FCB), the federally appointed entity tasked with the island’s debt restructuring. “The Flake and Lee offices have quietly been kicking around the idea of legislation to implement the PREPA privatization that members of the [FCB] have advocated,” wrote Chuck Podolak, a former adviser to Sen. Flake, in an email sent to Biggs. “We’re pretty new to the PREPA game and were wondering if we could grab a few minutes for a phone call with you to get some background on what thinking has been done on how to do this [the privatization],” he continued. These communications with FCB members not only reveal the intention of both senators to secretly pull the strings of privatization from the federal sphere, but they also demonstrate the depth of the political subordination of the Puerto Rican territory before the U.S. They further show a lack of independence from the FCB, which is called to act by its own criteria.
Puerto Rico’s federally appointed Fiscal Board refused to deliver an unspecified number of communications between the entity and officials of Congress, the White House, Treasury and other federal agencies. As part of an access to information lawsuit brought by the Center of Investigative Journalism (CPI) a year and a half ago, the Board alleges that they are privileged documents and must remain confidential. In a two-page letter dated Nov. 21 and addressed to the CPI’s legal representation, Board lawyers, Proskauer Rose, argue that the disclosure of certain emails and related attachments would affect the island’s economy, capital markets, pending law enforcement investigations and “the ability to perform [the Board’s] statutory duties.”
The entity imposed by the U.S. government through a federal law known as PROMESA only mentions broad justifications and descriptions for the withheld documents, the amount of which remains unknown, as are the names of those who are part of the communications that remain outside the public domain. The CPI lawsuit against the entity aims to obtain access to communications between the seven-member fiscal panel and both federal and local government.
“Started engaging with the creditors yet?,” asked Ted McCann, then adviser to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), in a March 21, 2017, email sent to Carlos García, a member of Puerto Rico’s federally appointed Fiscal Control Board. Shortly after, García, a former president of the commonwealth’s Government Development Bank (GDB) and whose appointment to the board was pushed through Ryan’s office, replied:
“Yes, a lot of focus on GO/Cofina controversy. Each group stepping up their rhetoric. Board pressing on for meaningful progress. Challenge is the limited projected Primary surplus available in the first 10 years for debt service.
