The Lineman Got $63 an Hour. The Utility Was Billed $319 an Hour. [View all]

[deminks]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/us/whitefish-energy-holdings-prepa-hurricane-recovery-corruption-hurricane-recovery-in-puerto-rico.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

SAN JUAN — The small energy outfit from Montana that won a $300 million contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s tattered power grid had few employees of its own, so it did what the Puerto Rican authorities could have done: It turned to Florida for workers.

For their trouble, the six electrical workers from Kissimmee are earning $42 an hour, plus overtime. The senior power linemen from Lakeland are earning $63 an hour working in Puerto Rico, the Florida utility said. Their 40 co-workers from Jacksonville, also linemen, are making up to $100 earning double time, public records show.

But the Montana company that hired the workers, Whitefish Energy Holdings, had a contract that allowed it to bill the Puerto Rican public power company, known as Prepa, $319 an hour for linemen, a rate that industry experts said was far above the norm even for emergency work — and almost 17 times the average salary of their counterparts in Puerto Rico.

(snip)

Questions are already being raised about a second contract that Prepa signed, this one with an Oklahoma company, Cobra, which was the highest bidder, required a $15 million down payment and — like the doomed Whitefish agreement — included a clause that said the deal could not be audited.

(end snip)

Gouging in Donnie's America. Who could have imagined?