The Peril of Privatizing Prepa
The plan for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa) has been contested hotly for months now, in a power struggle that started even before Hurricane Maria plunged the island into darkness for months. But the ultimate fate for the commonwealth-owned power company has always trended in one direction: privatization.
On Monday, Governor Ricardo Rosselló formalized that fate, announcing that over the next year-and-a-half, the Puerto Rican government will pursue a plan to sell the decrepit power utility, ending an effective territorial monopoly on electricity that has existed for almost 80 years, ever since President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In translated remarks announcing the decision, Rosselló cited deep structural problems with Prepa as one of the major factors for the island’s debt crisis. “One of the great impediments that has stopped our opportunities for economic development is the deficient and obsolete system of
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