Puerto Rico

Raise amid layoffs puts Puerto Rico's tourism chief in hot seat

Image via flickr.com

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Puerto Rican lawmakers are demanding the island's tourism director resign over a $36,000 raise even as the government has laid off thousands.

Sen. Cirilo Tirado accuses tourism chief Jaime Lopez of "lacking respect for the Puerto Rican people in the middle of a crisis."

Also at issue: an additional $35,000 payment to Lopez that Tirado is calling a Christmas bonus.

Tourism deputy director Mario Gonzalez replies that a 30 percent raise for Lopez was planned since last year, although it was formally approved only last week. He says the other payment was not a bonus but retroactive compensation for separate work.

Lopez was traveling outside Puerto Rico and could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Comments

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

• Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
• Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <h1><h2><cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><img><span>
• Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
• Images can be added to this post.
• You may insert YouTube videos with [youtube:ID]

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA

This question is to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image?: *

Enter the characters shown in the image without spaces, also respect upper and lower case.