Members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation are ramping up pressure on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands to free up payments owed to local and regional companies involved in rebuilding the islands after 2017 hurricanes Maria and Irma.
More than a dozen companies that worked as subcontractors to AECOM and Aptim rebuilding some 18,000 hurricane-damaged homes in the U.S.V.I. have yet to be paid for work they completed more than a year ago. Some are reportedly near bankruptcy; others have gone into debt. At least one, Beaumont, Texas-based Allco, has filed suit against Aptim, which it blames for the failure to pay.
But Aptim, AECOM and others have said several issues are behind the late payments—among them, long chains of subcontractors, federal reimbursement requirements and a massive increase in the oversight workload of small, understaffed V.I. government entities.
Late last week, Louisiana Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy announced that FEMA will expedite the funding process and that money could start flowing “in the coming weeks.”
“We’ve left Louisiana contractors in the lurch long enough,” Kennedy says in a prepared statement. “Enough is enough.”
Their announcement comes three months after the entire Louisiana congressional delegation sent a letter to U.S.V.I. Gov. Albert Bryan urging his government to do a better job getting local companies paid.
“For many of these companies, time is of the essence,” the letter reads. “We cannot let scheduling delays slow or pause our progress. Many of the invoices are well beyond the normal payment terms. Some of the invoices are more than 500 days old and have been sent back and forth through the system from contractor to your representatives. …”
It is unclear how many Baton Rouge companies were involved in the rebuilding and have been adversely impacted by the late payments.
But Allco, in its lawsuit against Aptim, says it had to go into debt to pay for labor and materials. The Texas company says it is owed $20 million, a claim Aptim denies.
