The head of Puerto Rico’s state-run power company stepped down Friday as more than 50 percent of the island remains in the dark and controversy swirls over the $300 million Whitefish contract.Ricardo Ramos, the executive director of PREPA since March, submitted his letter of resignation to the board on Friday, effective immediately. Gov. Ricardo Rossello made the announcement at an event at a local hospital, and it was later confirmed in a press release by PREPA.Rossello called Ramos “a distraction” and said his resignation was “in the best interest of the people of Puerto Rico.”Almost two months after Hurricane Maria hit the island, more than 50 percent of PREPA’s customers don’t have access to power, according to the government website, and power outages have repeatedly plagued the area since the storm made landfall, on Sept. 20. The already struggling debt-ridden agency had filed for bankruptcy in July.Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, slammed PREPA last week in response to documents released on the Whitefish contract, given to a tiny firm based in the Montana hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, showing it was rushed into effect with no other bids and untenable payment terms.“A legacy of dysfunction has created a competence deficit that threatens the island’s ability to improve conditions for its citizens,” Bishop said in a statement. “Confidence in the utility’s ability to manage contracts and time-sensitive disaster-related infrastructure work is long gone.”Ramos was the second important player in Hurricane Maria’s recovery efforts to resign in the past few weeks. Abner Gomez, the director of the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, resigned on Nov. 10, and was replaced by the secretary of Puerto Rico’s Department of Public Safety, Hector Pesquera.As of this week, some 57 percent of the island doesn’t have power and 20 percent of residents don’t have clean water.
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