"Privatizing PR" - A Scathing Indictment of the FOMBIf someone else already posted this and I missed it, my apologies. If not this is a good read that sheds light on the FOMB's goals and supports what Jeff has said about them.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/puerto-rico-privatization-prepa/
The above 12/1/20 article from The Nation indicts the FOMB for undermining Democracy and supporting the private corporate takeover and continued looting of PR's energy sector. Natalie and the Board are the new unelected and unaccountable dictators controlling everything that happens on the island.
An excerpt:
"Since 2016, when, in response to the island’s spiraling debt, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) was signed into law, many of its major decisions have been in the hands of the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), which many call simply “the Junta.” The FOMB is tasked with restructuring the territory’s $72 billion debt; its main tool, a brutal austerity regime. Hundreds of schools have closed, government workers’ pensions are threatened with cuts, municipalities are being defunded, and PREPA is slated to be fully privatized as part of the solution to its $9 billion debt."
Another excerpt:
"“I see the Fiscal Oversight and Management Board as kind of like the epitome of the neoliberal dream to have a nonelected government body with full authority to protect corporate interests and markets, unaffected by people’s preferences, opinions, and needs,” said Ingrid Vila, the head of Cambio, an organization that promotes sustainable energy in Puerto Rico, in an interview with The Nation.
Figueroa Jaramillo and UTIER, along with other supporters of Queremos Sol, want to bring Puerto Rico and its fossil-fuel-dependent energy infrastructure into the future, but they are up against powerful forces promoting the use of natural gas. The PREPA privatization is a case in point—a push to turn the public utility into a profit-making company for a few outside interests while providing no tangible benefit for the island’s inhabitants."