The scandal-ridden Whitefish Energy company suspended its work on rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid Monday night, saying the Puerto Rican government owes it millions of dollars.The island’s power authority canceled its $300 million contract with Whitefish back in October, after the Washington Post revealed that the Montana-based company had just two employees at the time of the storm. But the termination plan called for Whitefish to continue working until Nov. 30.In a letter sent to authorities on Sunday evening, Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski said that the government owed it some $83 million and warned that if wire transfers weren’t on their way by 11 a.m. local time, the energy company would stop work at 12 p.m.“PREPA’s failure and refusal to timely pay Whitefish Energy under the contract has created significant reluctance on the part of Whitefish Energy’s subcontractors to continue performing work in support of Whitefish Energy’s contract with PREPA,” the letter stated, adding that subcontractors were readying for “immediate departure.”The government released a statement of its own Monday, saying PREPA has had to stop payments “until the situation with the Whitefish subcontractor is clarified,” according to the Associated Press.The back-and-forth is symbolic of the greater complications challenging Puerto Rico as it attempts to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, which hit two months ago.The head of PREPA, Ricardo Ramos, resigned Friday, while the director of the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, Abner Gomez, resigned on Nov. 10.As of Tuesday, 50 percent of Puerto Rico was still without electricity and 12 percent did not have access to clean drinking water. Nearly 1,500 Puerto Ricans are still living in shelters.
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