Haiti and the vicious cycle of corruption
By Hyppolite Pierre
Haiti is a corrupt country. This is not just the privy of Lavalas, as many people seem to imply. It is now a very deeply entrenched culture caused by poverty, lack of even civic decorum, misunderstanding of the role of the State and its institutions, and the lack of accountability at every level.
In Haiti, we have a culture of what many of us call "voye monte". By that I mean people stating supposed facts which when they are checked, are found to be inaccurate, or misunderstood. The latest in this series is with Evans Paul, aka Kompè Plim, who last week or the week before, claimed that he had privilege information regarding Aristide who had purchased a home in Taiwan which he visited while he was there. Finally this time, not only did Aristide's press people deny it, but even the Taiwanese Ambassador to Haiti felt that it was necessary to in a diplomatic language, refute that story. The sad thing was, is that respectable media outlet in Haiti like Radio Metropole, even published the story as important, thus giving more credence to the unchecked and false allegation.
I must also add that Lavalas itself is also responsible for those allegations. Why? Because except in the above-referenced case, they almost never come out and ask for proof, or present proof that refute these allegations, or demand that the author of those allegations provide such proof. In one word, the lack of transparency is simply appalling. In the end, such an attitude will continue to strike blows to this movement, whether Lavalas believe it or not.
Haiti and its corruption scandals
The corruption stories that come out of there sadden the strongest of hearts. Does that mean however, that only the Haitian government is corrupt? Also, how corrupt is that government? Is that corruption deeply entrenched, or the results of a number of factors?
What strikes me is how those who hate Aristide, or his movement, suddenly suffer from myopia when it comes to other sectors in Haiti. Corruption, as an economic impediment, is in virtually every active facet of society. Examples abound.
The rest of society and the mistakes of the international community in this corruption cycle
Many foreign governments give out hundreds of thousand or even millions to political parties in Haiti. Yet, no one can attest to what those parties do in terms of structuring rationally their group, or try to get on the national stage. They have yet to publish even a report on Haiti to the wider audience that has been researched, which we could benefit from. We have no idea as to how much exactly they get, or how, or where this money goes. That is a case of corruption, or at least of potential corruption.
I recently read a text on the web, both on sakapfet.com, and on the Haiti Support Group website. The text suggested as I recall, that the European Union recently gave to the Initiative de la Société Civile (the Civil Society group mostly associated with the international community), something like 500 thousand Euros. Now at today's rate, this is close to if not even slightly above, half-a-million US dollars. I searched for a while last night to find the text, and couldn't. I now feel sorry because, I should have printed it, and kept it in my records.
If it's indeed true that the ISC did receive that much money, almost 30 million gourdes, what do they do with that money? How is it distributed? Do they use it to better organize civil society? Does or can the State (not just the Lavalas government) audit them on what they do with it?
There has also been a proliferation of nonprofit organizations in Haiti, ever since they've withheld funds to the government? They are supposed to use that money to alleviate the pain to the poor. In essence, they are supposed to do what otherwise, the government would have been asked to do, if they received that money. Is there any accounting of what they do with it and if so, can they provide that information to the public?
Finally, to control corruption in Haiti, how many auditing firms are there? Would for instance a business, agree to be audited by some independent firms over its real assets, an essential request in a market economy?
So everyone has a responsibility in this context to not only attack Lavalas on this issue, but also to look at the entire society and see how you can build mechanisms of control, so corruption can be if not eradicated, at least controlled, so that it does not remain the very serious impediment to economic progress that it is.
What we are doing, is attacking one side and not seeing the totality of the problem to ensure that it is once and for all corrected. I understand that nowadays, Lavalas and Aristide personally is the punching bag of the opposition. At the same time, we must be honest with ourselves, and discuss the problem in its totality, to find the appropriate solutions that will benefit Haiti overall.
Otherwise, we will keep moving from having one group of non-transparent politicians in power, to another, and another. Worse, Haiti will simply keep on getting poorer and poorer that way.
