CPAs call for collaboration from new government
Kenneth Rivera-Robles
Puerto Rico Society of Certified Public Accountants President Kenneth Rivera-Robles urged all sectors to set forth a reform program to help the island’s new leaders to get over the current crisis.
“Elections are over and it’s up to all of us to come together and help our island move forward,” he said. “We have to do this within our current economic framework.”
Hence the importance of the trade group’s economic and fiscal orientation he said they will share with the new leadership on the challenges the island faces of that nature: slow economic growth, rising fiscal obligations without a clear source of repayment in sight, and a decline in the manufacturing sector, whose presence has been gradually reduced.
In April, the CPAs presented a sweeping list of recommendations for the candidates running for governor in November, to address problems in five specific areas: electricity costs; the ailing retirement system; the municipal tax system; economic development; and the health system.
“We have to re-insert our island in the global economic context and not merely in the U.S. context. Puerto Rico has to be an attractive destination for companies and organizations that do not yet have a presence in the island consider us as a destination or attractive place to operate their business, for meetings and conventions, for sightseeing and to develop talent with new ideas and technology,” he said.
The recommendations, he said, are still valid and the CPA group is open to meeting with Gov.-elect Alejandro García-Padilla to discuss them.
