<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Puerto-Rico-Protests-After-Supplies-Found-in-Govt-Warehouse-20180111-0017.html">https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Puerto-Rico-Protests-After-Supplies-Found-in-Govt-Warehouse-20180111-0017.html</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Puerto Rico Protests After Supplies Found
in Gov't Warehouse<br>
</h1>
<div id="meta-data" class="meta-data">
<div id="reader-estimated-time">11 January, 2018<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div class="txt_newworld" itemprop="articleBody">
<p>Residents and workers in the Puerto Rican city of Toa
Alta hit the streets with the town’s mayor leading the
way to protest state-owned Electric Power Authority,
AEE, on Thursday.</p>
<p>"The demonstration is to make it clear to the
government of Puerto Rico and the AEE that they must
accelerate the work and send more brigades to the city,"
said the Toa Alta mayor, Clemente Agosto.</p>
<p>The town’s demands are simple. An end to the continued
series of delays which have left 65 percent of the city
and at least 20 businesses dark and without power since
Hurricane Maria hit the territory five months ago.</p>
<p>The company’s incredible mismanagement has contributed
mainly to the months of delays surrounding the
electrical repairs. This was made painfully clear after
a statement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
USACE, revealed that government authorities seized
thousands of materials which were supposedly out of
stock.</p>
<p>Over 2,875 pieces of materials were discovered during a
raid of a Palo Seco warehouse which was led by federal
officers, accompanied by armed security personnel.</p>
<p>"The material stored in the warehouse is critical for
the mission of restoring Puerto Rico's electrical system
... Warehouse number five is in control of the
Transmission Division, and has lacked transparency and
responsibility in the inventory," said USACE
spokesperson Luciano Vera told The Intercept.</p>
<p>Both the USACE and the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, FEMA, were charged with managing the
distribution of materials. Vera stated he and the other
engineers were shocked to find the wealth of building
repairs filling the warehouse shelves. Meanwhile, half a
million of Puerto Rican families remain homeless with
30,000 surviving the winter temperatures with blue tarps
stretched over the gaping holes where their roofs once
were.</p>
<p>"The irresponsibility and ineptitude of the Authority
is such that they do not even know what they have in
stock to repair the electrical network of Puerto Rico.
Here we have had Puerto Rican engineers who returned to
their jobs in the United States annoyed because they
could not give their best because of the lack of
materials,” said Democratic Party House Representative
Ramon Luis Cruz Burgos.</p>
<p>“However, today a warehouse full of materials appears.
It is incredible, the degree of irresponsibility and
incapacity of the government. The insensibility is such
that they forget that they play with the lives of
people. It is not only who needs machines or equipment
that work with electricity to maintain their life, it is
that people lose jobs because there is no electric
service, children do not receive the first-class
education required by the modern world, health services
are affected, and drinking water service does not arrive
properly. The abuse that causes the ineptitude has to
end now, you cannot keep losing time in people who act
as if governing was a game,” the politician said,
calling for immediate government action.</p>
<p>The Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rosello announced
Wednesday his plans to launch a campaign to become the
51st US state and end 120 years of colonialism. No U.S.
state would ever have to struggle with a
six-month-blackout or the damaged infrastructural
conditions, Puerto Rico has suffered, Rosello said,
adding that he felt it was the right thing to do.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>