Five Years Later: Where Did All the Haiti Aid Go?

Five Years Later: Where Did All the Haiti Aid Go?

Five years after the earthquake, nobody can claim it was mainly Haitians who squandered the money.

By Raymond A. Joseph in the Wall Street Journal

As the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake approaches, Haiti is in disarray, to the shame of the international community and the country’s leadership.

Of the 1.5 million made homeless by the 7.0 magnitude quake, more than 80,000 still live under faded tents, according to statistics of the International Organization for Migration. Government buildings that fell down haven’t been rebuilt. Even the presidential palace is lodged in a comfortable large tent. The government has boasted about several projects that are in various stages of completion, but they are blocked from view by red sheets of corrugated tin. The government’s model new village, Lumane Casimir, north of the capital, is yet to be completed. As of September, only 1,280 units of the original 3,000 were occupied. Manufacturing and commercial establishments for the village are yet to be conceived.

Where has more than $10 billion pledged for Haiti in 2010 gone? The U.S. Congress would like to know. During a review last year, Congress noted that donors world-wide had pledged $10.4 billion for the country. Denouncing a lack of accountability for U.S. funds spent on Haiti since 2010—some $3.6 billion has been allocated although not all has been spent—Congress passed the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act in July. It compels the U.S. Secretary of State to provide quarterly reports about U.S.-financed operations in Haiti.

Whatever those reports eventually say, nobody can claim that money has been squandered only by Haitians. On July 25, the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released its report “Breaking Open the Black Box: Increasing Aid Transparency and Accountability in Haiti.” Introducing the report, CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot noted that 62.2% of contracts from the U.S. Agency for International Development, or Usaid, has gone to “Beltway-based firms, while just 1.5 percent has gone to Haitian companies.” The CEPR also reported that “of the $6.43 billion disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors to Haiti from 2010-12, just 9 percent went through the Haitian government.” Much of the rest, according to Mr. Weisbrot, was spent “lining contractors’ pockets.”

The most glaring example of failure so far is the $300 million Caracol Industrial Park in northern Haiti, financed by Usaid and the Inter-American Development Bank. In October 2012, for the inauguration of Caracol, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was accompanied by her husband Bill, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti. She was welcomed by Haiti’s President Michel Martelly and a host of dignitaries. Caracol was expected to provide employment for 20,000 in the first five years and eventually employ 65,000. Its pioneer investor was the giant South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading. A Haitian franchise of Sherwin-Williams , the U.S. paint company, also became a tenant. There hasn’t been a stampede to Caracol. Government officials wouldn’t say how many companies are at Caracol. But only about 4,000 people are employed at Sae-A.

In her speech at the park’s inauguration in 2012, Mrs. Clinton noted, without saying so explicitly, another reason why Haiti finds itself floundering despite the billions in aid that has arrived since 2010. “In addition to effective government,” she said, “Haiti needs a strong justice sector, free and fair elections, housing, energy, schools, [and] health care.”

In December 2014, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe was forced to resign by public pressure over the abysmal state of the country’s economy and services. He and President Michel Martelly are accused by protesters of squandering the Petro Caribe aid, in the form of oil, from Venezuela. Their critics point to fat per diems that the officials give themselves when they travel, saying that the president gets $20,000 and the prime minister $10,000. Aggravating the situation is President Martelly’s failure since 2011 to hold timely elections at the municipal and national levels.

During the Cold War, the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti found U.S. support because of its anti-communism. The fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986 should have ushered in an era of democracy. But only two interim governments—in 1990 and 2006—organized free, fair and democratic elections. The international community should help to establish and nurture democratic institutions. Otherwise, Haiti won’t know political peace or economic development.

Mr. Joseph was Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2005 to 2010. His book on Haiti, “For Whom the Dogs Spy,” was published this week by Arcade Publishing.