November 15, 2017 12:06 PM
A special Haitian Senate commission is accusing more than a dozen former government officials and heads of private firms of embezzling $2 billion in Venezuelan oil loans — money that could have helped the country rebuild after its devastating earthquake in 2010.
An anti-corruption investigation concluded that charges should be filed against two former prime ministers, several ex-ministers and the owners of private firms on grounds they misappropriated and embezzled money that left post-quake Haiti with unfinished government buildings, poorly constructed housing and overpriced public works contracts.
The nearly $2 billion that was paid out came from the country’s Venezuelan oil largess, known as PetroCaribe. It provides Haiti and several other cash-strapped Caribbean countries with subsidized oil on favorable financing terms. The debt is stretched over a 25-year period with a 1 percent interest rate and a two- to three-year grace period allowing the countries to use the savings to finance social and economic projects.
“It can be declared that the PETROCARIBE has been the object of embezzlement, embezzlement, embezzlement and prevarication on the part of those indexed in this report,” the commission’s report concluded.
The probe covers 2008 to 2016, a time frame covering four hurricanes in Haiti in 30 days, the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and 2012’s Hurricane Sandy. In response, then-Presidents René Préval and Michel Martelly, declared states of emergency, allowing their respective prime ministers — Jean-Max Bellerive and Laurent Lamothe —to approved projects using PetroCaribe funds.
“The results, however, were very unconvincing and gave rise to worrying doubts about the management of the PETROCARIBE fund,” the report found.
Bellerive and Lamothe are among those named in the report, along with former finance and commerce minister Wilson Laleau, who currently serves as chief of staff for President Jovenel Moïse.
Among the waste detailed in the 646-page document distributed Tuesday, prior to a scheduled Senate hearing that was later postponed: construction overages that include the ministry of public works paying for 10 miles of road that actually measured 6.5 miles; the signing of a contract between the ministry of public health and a deceased person; large disbursements by government ministers with no documents to support the expenditures, and tens of millions of dollars paid to Dominican and Haitian firms for post-earthquake roads, housing and government ministries that never materialized or weren’t completed.
One of the most blatant allegations involved the reconstruction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, one of 40 government buildings that crumbled during the earthquake. The Dominican firm Hadom was awarded a $14.7 million contract, and paid $10 million up front, to construct the building that remains unbuilt. Hadom’s lucrative Haiti contract is among several given to Dominican firms after the quake that became the subject of separate probes in Haiti and in neighboring Dominican Republic, where Hadom owner and Dominican Senator Félix Bautista was accused of embezzlement. The Bautista case was eventually dropped by the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court.
Also cited in the Haitian Senate’s anti-corruption report are a number of private firms including one that the commission’s president, Sen. Evalière Beauplan, says is owned by current President Moïse.
Laleau has blasted the report as “biased, partial and partisan.” A minister under former President Martelly, Laleau is accused of misappropriation of public funds in the report.
“PetroCaribe,” Beauplan said, “is not a gift. It’s money Haiti borrowed, and generations of Haitians will have to repay this debt. But the government wasted this money, more than $2 billion.”
Prior to the earthquake, Haiti had accumulated more than $396 million in debt to Venezuela, which the South American nation forgave. But in the last seven years, it has wracked up almost $2 billion in new debt as Martelly’s government ministers traveled the globe promoting a new image of a post-quake Haiti while reconstruction projects languished and tens of thousands continued to live in camps. As of October, more than 37,000 Haitians still lived in 27 camps, the International Organization for Migration said.
“With all of that money, we don’t have anything in terms of a serious hospital. We don’t have anything in terms of an airport. We don’t have anything in terms of a port. We don’t have anything in terms of a stadium. We don’t have anything,” Beauplan said. “This money was wasted among a handful of people.”
This is not the first time a Haitian government commission has investigated government corruption. Last year, Senate President Youri Latortue launched a similar probe into Haiti’s management of its PetroCaribe funds. And after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s 2004 flee into exile, former Sen. Paul Denis headed an administrative probe that concluded that $17.4 million was transferred abroad by Aristide and his collaborators. No one was ever prosecuted as a result of either probes, leaving some to conclude that the current corruption investigation will be treated the same way.
Even so, the probe has sparked a debate about corruption and good governance in a country that continues to languish at the bottom of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking 159 out of 176.
That tainted image has led to donors such as the United States refusing to provide money directly to the Haitian government.
Both Bellerive and Lamothe — the two prime ministers who are among those the commission wants charged — have defended themselves against allegations of corruption in awarding the disaster-related contracts. They’ve said that $12 billion in promised earthquake aid was never delivered by the international community, forcing Haiti to dig into its own coffers and make quick decisions to help its recovery.
On Tuesday, they both rejected the report’s findings in messages to the Miami Herald, calling the report poorly put together and politically motivated. Three of the five commission members are in the opposition and some have charged that the goal of the report is to eliminate potential Haiti presidential candidates through the court of public opinion by tainting Martelly’s government as corrupt.
“As with everybody, my wish is for a true audit of not only the PetroCaribe funds, but generally of all the contracts signed by all governments,” said Bellerive, who also briefly served as Martelly’s prime minister after his 2011 election. “People have a right to a clear explanation. This report is just a political tool full of lies and assumptions. It won’t resolve the hunger for the truth.”
Lamothe, meanwhile, said the report “is a well-orchestrated character assassination campaign based on blatant lies and fabrications to block potential presidential candidates.”
On Tuesday, the Senate voted to delay a debate on the report until Nov. 30 to give members more time to read the final version.
COMMENT: HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG
The only way to have a realistic inquiry into anything like this would be via the retention of a group such as PRICE-WATERHOUSE or DELOIT-TOUCHE.
Anything inside Haiti is simply a guarantee of bias toward the group that set the game in motion. In this case it was the illegal, unconstitutional Jocelerme Privert who overstayed his mandate time as Provisional President, stretching the period to nearly a year, during which time he stole everything there was in the accounts and squeezed $8,000,000 from Taiwan for a favorable UN vote.
Privert is an old school Lavalas/Aristide person who actually stated, during his illegal period in office, that he would see a Lavalas government in place.
He named a Lavalas Police Chief, Lavalas head of Customs, Lavalas Governor of the Central Bank and a load of Lavalas, American passport carrying people throughout the Consular Corps. The Orlando, Florida is manned by many Beauplan family members, and 2 mistresses, all carrying American passports.
The Beauplan commission, for PETROCARIBE, has 4 out of 5 members under Lavalas control. Beauplan and Senator Don Kato are candidates for the Presidency and have personally acquired Petrocaribe funds fraudulently.. All of his team is funding street demonstrations to topple our present Democratically elected government of Jovenel Moise.
This tends to add to their bias.
And the Lavalas members of this team are recognized by the DEA for their excessive zeal in dealing with America’s demands. Perhaps all of the commission members but the others have not declared an interest in the Presidency
And so, 18 months ago, this commission set out to eliminate Laurent Lamothe and Wilson Laleau from any future participation in Haiti’s government. I suppose the fact the Preval died, saw them rationalize Preval’s PM Bellerive could be attacked.
$198,000,000 went unaccounted from Petrocaribe under Preval and has never been addressed, even though some have pressed for an investigation of this. Jacqueline Charles‘ close friendship with Rene Preval probably prevented effective coverage here. I think Bellerive/Preval rushed through some $450,000,000 in Dominican Petrocaribe funded contracts with Bautista during the last moments of their government.
Privert set the elimination of Lamothe and Laleau as his prime target and the Beauplan team worked back from that conclusion, accumulating fictional evidence to serve the purpose.
Report should have been printed on absorbent paper with non-poisonous ink.
Even then, Beauplan’s team made many dumb mistakes. In one instance they accused their targets of charging for mare road then had been completed. To prove this, they used a car with Statute Miles on the speedometer, rather than one in Kilometers.
Big difference!!
In fact, the contract had been fulfilled with the proper number of Kilometers.
Even as you read these words, members of the Senate are trying to re-write the report. I mean, come on guys!!
Enough is enough!!
This report has done its damage on the basis of the propaganda concept… “where’s there’s smoke, there is fire, ” which is not the case here.
A REALLY NEAT PROPAGANDA TOOL: THE VIDEO AT THE TOP OF THIS ARTICLE IS COHERENT AND – IF YOU DID NOT KNOW SENATOR BEAUPLAN’S RECORD – YOU WILL BE MORE INFLUENCED THAN IF YOU REALISE HE IS A MAJOR DRUG DEALER, THIEF OF KID’S SCHOOL FUNDING, AND RECIPIENT OF A SMALL PERSONAL FORTUNE IN PETROCARIBE FUNDING.
WHY NO VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH LAMOTHE, LALEAU OR BELLERIVE
This dossier will see delays, delays, delays and then fail to receive the required number of votes to do anything.
Already, members of the Senate are maneuvering, looking for some cool bribes to vote, one way of another. Their moral structure is such that their one guiding light is a bag full of American $100 bills.
The situation is a mess.
We refer to one well-known personality who said it all:
LET HE WHO HATH NO SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE.
THIS IS LAVALAS
THIS IS LAURENT LAMOTHE
THIS IS WILSON LALEAU
AND, THIS IS DEMOCRACY
