Governor says he doesn’t trust LUMA anymore
By The Star Staff
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia said Tuesday that he has communicated with the directors Quanta, the owners of LUMA Energy, because the consortium has lost all his support and he doesn’t believe them anymore.
“The reaction has been what I expected, but … like St. Thomas [Aquinas], as long as I don’t see the changes, I won’t believe that they are going to happen,” the governor said in response to questions from the press. “When I see them, then I’ll say something.”
Pierluisi said the directors of LUMA Energy lost his support after he heard from spokespeople of the consortium that administers the transmission and distribution of electricity on the island that one of the malfunctions in a high-voltage cable occurred, among other things, from not clearing away vegetation that caused an outage.
“They are not going to have my support unless there are changes that I have asked for,” the governor said.
Asked whether those changes include the departure of Wayne Stensby and the executive group accompanying him, Pierluisi responded that he is going to wait for Quanta to comply with his demands.
Asked about scheduled protests calling for the cancellation of the public-private contract between the island government and LUMA Energy, the governor said: “Forget about that. That is politicking. No, man, no.”
He said it is not so simple as demanding the cancellation of the contract because, as he understands it, the law requires a public-private alliance in the energy system, and until a substitute is found, LUMA will have to be paid a greater quantity than the contract establishes.