October 19, 2011|By Megan O’Matz, Sun Sentinel:

In the year following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, nearly $49 million poured into a relief fund led by former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush to get aid to the victims and help rebuild the country.

With two of America’s most prominent public figures appealing for donations, raising the money was easy. Spending it was not.

Newly released tax forms filed by the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund show that in its first year, 2010, the fund paid out only $7.7 million in grants – or about 15 percent of the contributions.

Nearly a full year after the January 12, 2010 disaster — the fund had net assets – unspent — of $40 million.

“We certainly are not trying to hold back our funds,” said Meg Galloway Pearce, spokeswoman for Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. “We’re trying to put out money where we can. We just want to make sure we do it in a smart way.”

The fund has chosen a thoughtful, measured approach to distributing the money, born of a desire to help in a way it believes will do the most long-term good. It is focusing on promoting economic growth and fostering job creation, more so than delivering basic necessities.

The charity has faced the same logistical obstacles in Haiti, the hemisphere’s poorest nation, that other aid organizations have, including political turmoil, protests, corruption, hurricanes and washed out roads.

“Anyone familiar with Haiti knows things just take longer in Haiti,” Pearce said.

But some donors said they thought the money they sent the fund would be used immediately to ease the plight of earthquake victims, and were dismayed to hear so much of what had been contributed remained unspent a year after the disaster.

“That is disappointing. Very disappointing. Heart-rending,” said Nadege Marc, an elementary teacher who has siblings, nieces and nephews in Haiti. “My family to this day, after the earthquake, still doesn’t have a place to live. They still are struggling. They still are trying to provide for themselves.”

Marc’s school, Veterans Elementary in Howard County, Md. raised about $5,000 for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in one week. She said she did not expect the fund to have $40 million unused at year’s end. “You should never have money left over. Every year you should be trying to raise money. You say: ‘Hey, we’ve got no more money. We spent it! Help us out.'”

Today in Haiti 500,000 people are still homeless and living in camps under canvas. The majority of Haitians don’t have access to clean running water. The country does not have major sewage systems.

Cholera has killed more than 6,400 people since an epidemic broke out in October 2010 caused by fecal contamination of the Artibonite River, which is used by many for bathing, drinking and irrigation.

Some critics say that fact alone suggests that the money collected by the Clinton Bush fund and other international non-profits could have been targeted better.

“When billions of dollars are raised in relief and rebuilding, a cholera epidemic shouldn’t then kill 6,000 and infect hundreds of thousands of others,” said Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group that aims to provide greater oversight of relief agencies and their activities.

By January 2011 several dozen aid groups had raised a collective total of $1.4 billion for Haitian relief and reconstruction but had spent only half of it, according to a survey done by the project.

Smilowitz does not question the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund’s focus on job creation. “But,” he said, “I think when people donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and other relief efforts they did not expect that their money would sit in the bank while people died.”

In a video appeal for donations made in February 2010, Clinton and Bush urged donors to contribute to save lives, as well as to rebuild Haiti “in the months and years to come.”

Additional financial records for the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund are not available yet for 2011.

The fund, however, is claiming greater success this year in awarding the money. The organization, on its Website, reported that from its inception through Sept. 14 it had raised $54 million and “committed $32.2 million to organizations working in Haiti” – which is about 60 percent of the donations received.

By its own admission, the fund has heard from donors confused or upset at the pace and direction of its efforts, such as its decision earlier this year to invest $2 million in the construction of a 130-room hotel in suburban Pétion-ville, one of the island nation’s most upscale communities.

“I took a lot of calls from people wondering why wasn’t the money going out, why are you giving money to the Oasis Hotel when there are people starving,” Pearce said.

The fund’s answer: by putting its money to work, it’s helping put the Haitian people to work, so they won’t have to rely on foreign aid. The hotel, once built, is expected to create 200 jobs.