By Deborah Sontag and Stephanie Strom with replies from Hugh Locke, President of Yele Haiti in green text

CROIX DES BOUQUETS, Haiti — A few months before Wyclef Jean, the hip-hop star, declared his candidacy for president of Haiti, the representative of a struggling tent camp made a pilgrimage to the new headquarters of Mr. Jean’s charity. He arrived, hat in hand, at the eight-acre compound the charity leased after a fund-raising bonanza in response to the Jan. 12 earthquake.

But the representative, Carel Calixte of the Christ Roi camp, could not get past the gate of the $15,000-a-month property, where grapefruit and palm trees surround an unfilled swimming pool and two model homes for the homeless sit empty. So, accepting a vague promise of assistance, he left.

No help ever arrived, Mr. Calixte and other leaders at Christ Roi said, even though the charity, Yéle Haiti, lists their camp among several dozen it supports. Yéle’s president, Hugh Locke, provided dates of several water deliveries to Christ Roi. But camp leaders insist that their water has been supplied not by Yéle but by two other nonprofit groups.

While there are certainly some within the estimated 70,000 people living in the 34 tent camps to which Yéle distributes water, food, clothing and other supplies who have never received anything from the organization. But random interviews in the chaotic camp settings where people are moving a lot and conditions are truly miserable is not grounds for dismissing months of well documented delivery of relief supplies. Taking just one component from our overall distribution program, Yéle has delivered over 2.3 million gallons of water to these camps using a fleet of 14 tanker trucks, each carrying 1,200 gallons of potable water – an operation that we plan to expand in coming months.

The official tent camp leader in the Christ Roi camp is Ronald Saint-Rose, and it was in consultation with Mr. Saint-Rose that Yéle Haiti made the following bulk water distributions to the camp during the period referred to:

–   February 19: 2 trucks (each truck holds 1,200 gallons of potable water)

–   March 9: N/A number of trucks, but distribution took place

–   April 9: 1 truck

–   April 10: 5 trucks

At least four more camps that Yéle claims to support also maintain that they have received nothing from Yéle — “Not even a cookie!” Ricardo Dorvelus, a camp leader, said — and still others characterize Yéle’s assistance as short-lived or token, like the television donated to one camp that broke halfway through the World Cup.

The Times was supplied with dates and quantities of distributions to the five camps in question. The total amount of water distributed to the five camps for the period February 11 to April 22 was 93,600 gallons, while the hot meals delivered during the same time period totaled 3,500 to three of the camps (two of the camps were not included in the hot meal program).

Mr. Jean, who is considered a potential front-runner in the campaign, said his charity was saving lives, especially in “the roughest communities.” He dismissed the accounts from camp leaders as “hearsay” that reflected “the overall fear and anger in these camps after nearly seven months of hardship and fear.”

Mr. Jean also expressed displeasure that his presidential bid has renewed scrutiny of his charity and its history of poor financial management “at a time when I am trying to make a genuine difference.”

How Mr. Jean, a celebrity with no experience in politics, has guided Yéle Haiti offers one barometer of his ability to lead. The earthquake raised the musician’s profile and brought his small nonprofit group more than $10.5 million through July 31, of which just under a third has been spent, according to the charity.

In the past, Mr. Jean blurred boundaries between his personal, business and philanthropic enterprises. His charity paid his production company for benefit concerts featuring Mr. Jean, and paid his Haitian television station for promotions that also featured him. After the earthquake, the television station, its building badly damaged, broadcast rent-free from Yéle’s new estate.

Derek Q. Johnson, who became Yéle’s chief executive this month after Mr. Jean stepped down to run for president, said, “On the whole, it’s clear that missteps have been made, both in execution and in judgment, some of which apparently are still unfolding.”

The New York Times was given DVD copies of three years worth of television programming that had been commissioned by Yéle from Telemax. Every activity that featured Wyclef during that period was sponsored by Yéle, including concerts, soccer matches, Christmas parties for underprivileged children and visits to Yéle programs. There was not one program that was a promotion of Wyclef separate from his role with Yéle. It should also be noted that using music and sports in support of development has always been part of Yéle’s mission.

Telemax was temporarily at Yéle’s property in exchange for running a series of Yéle PSAs during the month-long broadcast of the World Cup. Copies of the six Yéle PSAs produced for this purpose were supplied to the New York Times. Telemax was not on Yéle’s property on a rent-free basis but rather, as was reported to the New York Times in writing, based on an exchange of services.

On Monday, Euro RSCG Worldwide PR announced that it had resigned from all public relations work for Yéle and Mr. Jean’s campaign. The firm offered no explanation.

To his many ardent supporters here, Mr. Jean’s championing of the Haitian cause is more important than any missteps at Yéle — and Mr. Jean has acknowledged making mistakes.

Jocelyn Augustin, 38, a pregnant mother of three who lives in a miserable camp beside a municipal dump, said she idolized Mr. Jean even before his charity gave the camp’s residents tents branded with the Yéle logo. “After God is Wyclef,” she said.

To Mr. Jean’s skeptics, indications that he has poorly handled money at Yéle and in his personal life — with $2.1 million in tax liens against his house in Saddle River, N.J., which Mr. Jean says he is addressing, and an unfinished Miami mansion lost to foreclosure — raise concerns about a presidential candidate for a shattered country pledged billions in reconstruction aid.

After the earthquake, it was widely reported that Yéle’s 2006 tax filing revealed $350,000 in questionable payments to two companies that Mr. Jean and his cousin control, including $250,000 to a Haitian television station they had just acquired.

Yéle underwent an independent external audit for the period 2005 to 2008 and as part of that audit the payment of $250,000 to Telemax for contractual services and the payment of $100,000 to Platinum Sound for contractual services were deemed acceptable “related party transactions” because they involved services that were in support of the non-profit mission of Yéle Haiti and because the services were documented and rendered were on par or less than fair market value for those services.

But the story behind that $250,000 transaction is more complex.

It starts with Angelina Jolie, pregnant at the time, who agreed to let a photographer friend of Mr. Jean take pictures of her “baby bump” in January 2006 and sell them to raise money for Yéle. People magazine then made a contribution to Yéle in exchange for the photographs, a spokeswoman confirmed. It brought the charity $600,000, two people with knowledge of the arrangement said.

Yéle received funds from People Magazine in connection with these photographs, but everyone involved in the transaction on Yéle’s side is bound by a confidentiality agreement entered into between Yéle and People in which Yéle may not disclose the amount.

That same month, Yéle sent $250,000 to Mr. Jean’s television station, Telemax, according to a bank statement. The expense was listed on the charity’s tax forms as a pre-purchase for production services and airtime for Yéle “outreach efforts.”

Those efforts consisted primarily of promotional events featuring Mr. Jean. A spreadsheet listing the videos’ titles includes “Wyclef Jean with Angelina”; “Wyclef Jean and Akon”; and “Wyclef Jean and Matt Damon.”

Part of the mission of Yéle Haiti has been from the outset to “built global awareness for Haiti”, which has included Wyclef serving as host to Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Akon and Matt Damon. Jolie and Pitt visited boy prisoners who were part of a Yéle-supported rehabilitation program and met children who were in school through a Yéle-supported scholarship program. Akon and Wyclef gave a free concert in Port-au-Prince and then visited a Yéle program involving local women preparing meals for schools without kitchens. Matt Damon and Wyclef toured flood-ravaged Gonaives following the storms and hurricanes that devastated that city in 2008 and issued a joint appeal on behalf of the United Nations for international financial assistance.

Mr. Johnson, Yéle’s new chief executive, reviewed the videos and said that he had doubts about calling them charity, saying “it does strain credibility to suggest that the tapes depict ‘a wide range of development and social issues in Haiti.’ ”

“I’m not sure they would meet my definition of programming that speaks to the social needs of the Haitian people,” Mr. Johnson said.

Mr. Jean said “it’s a debatable conversation” whether the programming advanced Yéle’s mission, but he defended it as educational. “Culture is part of the youth population in Haiti,” he said.

Even at the time, Yéle officials did not believe prepaying for promotional videos was justified, according to Sanjay Rawal, the charity’s director from 2004 through 2005 and a board member afterward.

Mr. Rawal was director of the US Yéle Haiti Foundation, which was responsible for fundraising, from November of 2004 to December of 2005 when he resigned. Mr. Rawal had no role in the creation of Yéle’s operation on the ground in Haiti or any of the programs, partnership or activities of the charity there. He offered to serve on the board following his departure, but that offer was declined.

But Yéle needed a way to account for $250,000 that Mr. Jean, through the check to Telemax, had used to help cover the costs of a carnival float, Mr. Rawal said.

Mr. Rawal was not involved with Yéle Haiti past the end of December, 2005. Full documentation on the use of the $250,000 was provided to the New York Times, and none of the funds were used for a carnival float or the importing of a lion.

The float featured Mr. Jean in a frilly blouse and gilded epaulettes as Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian revolutionary hero. Mr. Jean also imported a lion for the spectacle, keeping it in the parking lot of the Montana Hotel, now destroyed, where the kitchen crew fed the beast sirloin steaks.

Mr. Jean denied this allegation, saying it came from disgruntled ex-employees. He said Voilà, a cellphone company for which he served as spokesman, had a “majority sponsorship of the float.”

Bradley J. Horwitz, chief executive officer of Trilogy International Partners, which owns Voilà, said the company had “sponsored Carnaval and Wyclef through a sponsorship with Telemax,” though he did not provide specific information.

But Mr. Rawal said he knew “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that the $250,000 had covered expenses for the float, which incurred damages during the carnival. A second individual with knowledge of the transaction, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, provided the same account of events.

Mr. Rawal is incorrect in his assessment of something that took place after he had left the organization.

How Yéle has performed in the aftermath of the quake is difficult to gauge. The organization declined to provide a financial breakdown of its programs and services. And since Yéle chooses to operate outside the network of nonprofit groups here, well-established organizations say they are unaware of its activities.

“We’re not a massive organization raising $100 million or $250 million,” Mr. Jean said, “but what we have I’m proud of.”

Large organizations like the World Food Program, which once relied on Yéle to help distribute food in volatile slum areas, have not worked with the charity since the earthquake, saying it “requires partners with extensive experience and infrastructure.”

But Yéle has distributed significant quantities of food, water and tents, Mr. Locke said, as well as donating $500,000 for a high-resolution CT scanner and forming a partnership with others on an environmental program.

Yéle has also prepaid for 100 transitional shelters, at $2,880 each, which is more than twice what other groups have been paying. But the shelters cannot be erected until the government allocates land — which Mr. Locke says is unlikely now that Mr. Jean is running.

It should be no surprise that not all transitional shelters are identical and as a consequence not all transitional shelters cost the same. Yéle opted for a higher quality unit with a poured concrete foundation, wood frame construction, two louvered windows and screened ventilation.

On Tuesday, the elections board is scheduled to disclose the candidates who have qualified to run. Mr. Jean, who was born in Haiti but moved to Brooklyn as a child, says he fits the citizenship requirement because he holds a Haitian passport. The residency requirement — five consecutive years before the Nov. 28 election — might be more difficult.

If Mr. Jean does qualify, some here worry that he will enlist Yéle in his campaign, which would violate American tax law governing charitable assets.

“It is problematic if he uses this money, which historically has not been well spent, for political purposes,” said Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer.

In early July, Mr. Jean held a traffic-stopping rally to kick off a job creation program called Yéle Corps. Yéle paid 200 people $7 each to surround him at the event and to pick up some garbage afterward. Then the workers were dismissed because the program had not yet been fully planned.

The first 200 workers for the Yéle Corps program were signed up prior to the July launch with Wyclef. They were asked to attend a launch for the program in advance of reporting for work on August 9 and so it was felt that they should be compensated for their time for the day of the launch. Their regular wage is the equivalent of US$7 a day and so that is what they were paid for that day. The New York Times was given full documentation about the Yéle Corps program including the plans for the start date of August 9. Their reporter Deborah Sontag attended a training session for Yéle Corps team leaders, inspectors and controllers on August 7 and was invited to the first day of work on August 9. To then allude suggest that “the program had not yet been fully planned” is completely contract to the extensive documentation provided to the New York Times.

Among those vying for the first Yéle street-cleaning jobs at a recent sign-up was Benilhomme Joastin, 75. He said that he was asked for what he called his electoral card to register, and that those without such cards were turned away. What many Haitians refer to as their electoral card is simply their national identification card, yet Mr. Joastin still perceived the request as political and shrugged it off.

Even if Yéle takes pains to distance its programs from Mr. Jean, he said, Haitians know the charity as his.

“Wyclef is Yéle; Yéle is Wyclef,” said Prénord Joseph, a leader of the Fontamara tent camp. When Mr. Joseph helps Yéle distribute water at his camp, he does not demand electoral support for Mr. Jean, he said.

“But the result of getting those services is that the people will vote for Wyclef,” he said, adding, “We take off our shirt for the person who sweats for us.”