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"I expect this
new fiscal plan will be ready once the board is announced,"
Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla told reporters in New York via
a Skype video conference call from his office in San Juan. The
call was part of an event organized by the City University of
New York Graduate School of Journalism.
On June 30th, U.S. President Barack Obama signed the Puerto Rico
Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act just one day
before the island faced a deadline to make a debt payment of
around $2 billion. Garcia Padilla authorized a suspension of the
payments just after Obama signed the bill into law.
Under the act, the deadline for naming the seven-member board is
Sept. 15. Garcia Padilla said on Tuesday he did not have any
idea who would be named nor the timing, but hoped it would
happen before the end of August. Obama will choose from
candidates presented by Republican and Democratic leaders in the
House of Representatives and Senate.
Garcia Padilla, who is not running for reelection and has said
the board would be an imposition on the island's sovereignty,
accepted that the legislation was needed in order to work out a
solution.
The oversight board has the authority to enforce balanced
budgets and government reform if the Puerto Rican government
fails to do so, including the sale of government assets, the
consolidation of agencies and staff cuts.
The board also has the authority to facilitate consensual
restructuring talks, or push Puerto Rico into a court-supervised
process akin to U.S. bankruptcy.
After years of talks between the government and its creditors,
failure to reach an agreement on restructuring the debt led to
the passage of the legislation that all parties said was
imperfect but necessary.
Garcia Padilla said he was still open to talking with creditors
and that "prosperity will not return overnight."
(Reporting by Daniel Bases; Editing by Richard Chang)
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