Governor calls for LUMA president Stensby’s removal
By The Star Staff
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia was adamant Thursday that he wants Wayne Stensby removed as president of LUMA Energy.
“Do you anticipate the departure of Wayne Stensby governor?” asked NotiUno programming director Alex Delgado.
“I already said it. I don’t have to say it with name and surname,” the governor replied. “Yes, I am asking for a change at the highest level in management so that performance improves, period.”
Meanwhile, Pierluisi praised LUMA Energy’s director of renewable energy projects, Daniel Hernández Morales, who served as spokesman for the consortium in the process of restoring electricity service after Hurricane Fiona.
“He communicated correctly, consistently, was available to the media at all times, and spoke in ‘rice and beans,’” the governor said. “And that is a breakthrough. I have to say it because he’s ours. He’s Puerto Rican and he did a great job.”
Could Hernández eventually become the head of LUMA?
“That’s an internal decision of LUMA,” Pierluisi said. “They are responsible for their own actions, for fulfilling the contract they have.”
He also said in the interview that he demanded of the president of Quanta (one of LUMA’s parent companies), Earl “Duke” Austin, that the private operator of the island’s electricity transmission and distribution system has to improve communication, especially with the mayors, and insisted that they have to have to increase the number of permanent employees in Puerto Rico.
“No emergency personnel or subcontractors and stuff, they have to increase staff on the street …” he said. “If they had more staff on the street, the response to an event like the one that just happened would have been faster.”