The recovery efforts in Puerto Rico are being hampered by the inability of local government officials to effectively distribute the large amounts of aid being delivered by the federal government. So much so, that this past weekend, the Defense Department had to take over the distribution task from the local mayors. The poor performance of these local officials could be explained by the sheer size of the devastation and/or lack of experience in such matters. However, the inexplicable behavior of one local official, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, goes beyond the limping of simple inexperience and gallops full tilt into the realm of stupidity. Mayor Cruz has been on a nearly constant rant of blame directed at the federal government, FEMA, and the President in particular, for being inefficient and ineffective in the recovery effort. Her over-the-top rhetoric (“We are dying…”) and spotty participation in FEMA coordination meetings taking place on the island, makes it evident that selfish interest in her own political future is her main motivation. Secondary at best is any true desire to make her constituents’ situation better. The FEMA Director, Brock Long, stated that to do his job, he’s had to “filter out” comments from Mayor Cruz. In a crisis like this when effective local leadership that produces results (not just rhetoric) is most crucial, her performance has been utterly shameful.
While taking advantage of a devastating calamity for political gain is not new (Hillary Clinton took to politicking for gun control last week only a few hours after the Las Vegas massacre), Mayor Cruz has gone further. She has chosen to castigate both FEMA and the President for not performing up to an undefined standard to alleviate her island’s extreme level of destruction. Whether driven by personal ambition or urging from her supporters in the US Congress, her nonrealistic tirade has overridden any thoughtful and reasoned approach to rebuilding her city. This is especially true when you consider the overall context of Puerto Rico’s preexisting downward spiral into bankruptcy.
Before hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico’s infrastructure was already in terrible condition and badly in need of maintenance and upgrades. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) went bankrupt this past July. Worse, because of poor government management, Puerto Rico itself has been in bankruptcy since June of this year. The only reason the power companies were operating at all before the hurricane was because a bankruptcy judge had ordered their creditors to stand down. There was no workable solution in the offing for this financial collapse at the time. Then the hurricane hit.
Puerto Rico is now getting and will continue to get hurricane recovery aid in the form of money, manpower, supplies, and services from the federal government and others. If managed well, some of that aid can be translated into infrastructure fixes and improvements that were desperately needed even before the storm. A silver lining of the storm is that some of this needed improvement can be undertaken outside of the financial morass that existed before the hurricane. The key to maximizing this benefit is to do everything possible to cooperate with those providing the aid and make the situation conducive to outsiders who are considering volunteer efforts to help fix the infrastructure. This is why Mayor Cruz’s behavior is so feckless. She should be embracing rather than badmouthing the federal government’s aid.
In his career before being elected President, Donald Trump was one of the most successful real estate developers in the world and a proven effective manager of very large construction projects. Those projects required massive infrastructures and careful planning to put them in place. There has never been a President with more direct experience in this area, and Puerto Rico could benefit tremendously from that experience. Given that the President also has a heavy influence on the amount of money to be spent on this effort, a golden opportunity exists for Puerto Rico if it plays its cards right. Either Mayor Cruz is completely ignorant of these circumstances, foolish, or her rejection of the President’s politics and/or personality is so overwhelming that she just doesn’t care. Mayor Cruz’s behavior thus far has been likely to discourage assistance and lessen the probability of this opportunity for her city and territory.
Another problem for the Administration as well as other aid providers is the knowledge that the current leadership in Puerto Rico, and the policies and bureaucracy they support, is largely to blame for Puerto Rico’s financial crisis. For those who would be seeking to invest in Puerto Rico beyond the immediate needs of hurricane recovery, what confidence can they have that their investment will be well-managed and not just run into the ground again? This is another part of the overarching context that Mayor Cruz is not seeing. Her actions so far clearly do not inspire confidence in investors.
Mayor Cruz is highly educated with degrees in political science, public management and policy. She has the tools to do a good job and bring Puerto Rico back. Twitter battles with the President and arguing with FEMA make headlines and help Mayor Cruz achieve notoriety, but accomplish absolutely nothing for her constituency. An opportunity for real success for Puerto Rico with strong leadership is staring Mayor Cruz in the face. Now is the time for her to look at the big picture and encourage, not antagonize, those who can facilitate that success.
2 Responses
Puerto Rico is one of those places I never really consider as a part of the United States, if only because I forget it exists. A quick Wiki search of the independent state however raises the question – why do we own Puerto Rico? I see that Puerto Rican citizens do not pay federal income tax on Puerto Rican income. They are $72 Billion in debt with a 45% poverty rate. Why should the United States bear the burden of a small Central American state with the accompanying corruption of leadership? I’m really curious as I don’t know much about Puerto Rico. Other than fresh bodies for the military, what do they actually contribute?
Very good questions Jared. Manufacturing is the primary driver of Puerto Rico’s economy followed by services including real estate and tourism. The lack of electricity has ground most of the manufacturing industry to a halt and the physical hurricane damage has all but wiped out real estate and tourism for the time being. You hit on the big question though – what is the investment value, even in a re-built Puerto Rico, with known corruption, mismanagement and a huge bureaucracy that is slow to change still in place throughout the island’s government? This demands some very careful and sober thought. As we mentioned in the post, there is a potential path here for Puerto Rico to fix itself up well if they take full advantage of all the money, manpower and services currently being given to them for hurricane relief. However, there is also the possibility of a retreat back into the same old pattern of corruption, and a lot of the aid money ending up where it doesn’t belong. We’ll see.