Jose Gonzalez Freye is one of Puerto Rico’s wealthiest and most powerful men. He has virtual monopolies in the selling of rice in the island. Recent reports indicate that he controls well over 90% of al the rice sold here. He also seems to control over 70% of all the fertilizers sold on the island.

It seems he conceals his semi-monopolies by marketing his products under diverse name brands. For example, when people go to the supermarket and they see all these different brands of rice, D’Aqui, Sello Rojo, Pueblo, they assume that these are independent companies competing with each other. They assume wrong. The fact is that they are all controlled by this one businessman and his company Pan American Grain. The rice is all processed in his plants and simply put in different bags, under different names.

Gonzalez Freyre is now being investigated by both the federal government and the island’s legislature. He, together with the governor of Puerto Rico and eleven other defendants are being investigated for corruption charges. The legislature, led by Orlando Pargas, is also looking into the monopoly accusations against him.

On May 8^th of 2008, Gonzalez Freyre said in writing to the legislators that he would not deliver 30 truck loads worth of rice to the public school lunch rooms until the investigation against him ended. He even went so far as to say that if he was accused of any wrong doing he would not honor the contract he has with the department of Education, thus breaking his contract with comedores escolares.

By doing this, this businessman is basically taking tens of thousands of Puerto Rican children hostage to force the legislature to do his will.  Now it also turns out that he got these government contracts without competing with anyone. No one else was allowed to participate in the subastas process. If this is true then the question is why? Why should any one company be given hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of government contracts without having to compete for them?

Amazingly neither the Secretary of Justice, Roberto Sanchez, nor the Secretary of Education, Rafael Aragunde, has reacted to this vulgar attack on the government’s authority and duty to investigate questionable business practices that undermine the people of Puerto Rico’s best interests.  Since he is the only provider of rice to the lunch room program, he is in fact using his virtual monopoly to stop a legitimate investigation of his actions.