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Thursday the Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe gave more details on the origin of the rice and the government’s strategy with immediate effect, in the short, medium and long-term to fight against the price increases of strategic food products.
“[…] under the program of the Haitian Government, named PL-480, the Government signed an agreement with the Japanese Government, who sent 300.000 bags of rice to Haiti. It’s the Monetization Office who will receive them and will work with importers and distributors to put them on the market at a price lower than today.
[…] ordered only one ship of 300,000 bags, it will reduce the price immediately, but we do not want to stay there […] We want the price remains low throughout the year, and for that the Government made arrangements. We formed a commission of price stabilization, which met the entire sector : farmers, peasants, farmers, importers, distributors, retailers, smaller merchant, to be able to put everyone around this problem, because it is a problem that concerns not just one person, there can not have speculation on the market while 10 million Haitians depend on these foods to feed, to feed their children.
[…] The role and responsibility of the Government is to work with all sectors to come up with a strategy with a term immediate, to short, medium and long term. Regarding the immediate term, we have already given the response, there is also the Argentine government that will send more than 16,000 tons of rice, which will also help the price issue immediately.
But we must be clear on one thing, we must invest in our production, we must give our farmers an incentive so that they continue to plant […] We will come up with a specific program, which will guarantee the purchase of a portion of peasant production [what already makes, in part, WFP within the framework of school canteen], we will introduce the program officially in two weeks, it will be the medium-term response.
But once again, for the long-term response, Haiti must regain its food sovereignty before 1987 we were self-sufficient […] Today, we must invest in our production, so that when the prices go up and down [international], we have our own production. What happens is that we depend on international markets, over which we have no control, to buy strategic and sensitive food, such as rice, oil or sugar.
How can we understand that a country like Haiti, which produced its own sugar, today produce almost nothing ? […] The price increases when there is a scarcity, and when there is scarcity and that a person has the required product, this person decides to increase the price, what affects millions of people […] to avoid this situation, we must have a market well stocked, without scarcity…“
They will take the monies from this to pay the Senate and Chambre of Deputies to keep Martelly on the throne.