18732: Marina: Internet quotes & sources concerning transparency (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Marina <marinawus@yahoo.com>

List Members:

I have found the following quotes on the issue of
Transparency:

"Transparency? Dupuy asked. "We see a number of people
in the government now... who came to power without a
penny and today they have lots of capital, huge
palaces, and big institutions," Dupuy said. "Nobody
knows where that money came from and they have never
abided by the Constitutional requirements" of filing a
financial disclosure statement on entering and leaving
office."
source:http://www.1worldcommunication.org/aristideaboutface.htm,
article by Haiti Progres, April 20,2001


                      ****

Pierre Jean this is a quote concerning the Fusion deal
and the funds received by the Aristide government in
exile:

"Whatever the Fusion deal is, members of the Haitian
business community insist that it had to be negotiated
through the ruling party and its leader, Mr. Aristide.
As one leading Haitian businessman told me, "The
telephone concessions are an arbitrary distribution of
favors. Anybody who got anything received it through
Lavalas. They control the telephone sector. There has
been no privatization, no transparency and no legal
rules."
During Mr. Aristide's time as a president-elect in
exile, he had access to some $40 to $50 million in
frozen Haitian government assets. He drew on those
assets at a rate of $900,000 a month during his first
year of exile, and $1.8 million a month starting in
October 1992, as previously reported in The Wall
Street Journal. He also collected millions of dollars
in telephone and other royalties due the government of
Haiti. This explains how he was able to pay expensive
lawyers, with good political connections, to press his
case for U.S. aid in returning him to the Haitian
presidency."
source:http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95000545

2nd source:
http://www.haiti-info.com/imprimer.php3?id_article=12

****

If you are interested in the "Privatization" of the
Minoterie D'Haiti (Flour Mill) read the following:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43a/220.html

and I quote:

"According to the few details of the deal made public,
the Haitian-American consortium - a novice Haitian
finance group, Unifinance, and two
mega-agribusinesses: Continental Grains, which did
US$15 billion in sales last year and is into wheat,
rice, chickens, finances and a host of other
activities in over 50 countries, and Seabord
Corporation, which has boats, flour, pork, chicken,
etc, and did almost US$1.5 billion in business last
year -got a great deal. There is no question who is
running the consortium which gets the 70 percent in
exchange for promising to invest US$9 million in the
mill. (The state retains 30 percent.) Each of the
three partners has US$3 million worth of shares, but
already Unifinance has announced it plans to sell off
$2 million worth. The consortium has promised to open
the mill in nine months.

Coincidentally or not, this first privatization of
Haiti's state companies went through only three days
before US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's
visit. The contract signing, replete with champagne,
was festive, and, not surprisingly, although Albright
was not there, the other patrons were, beaming. US
Ambassador William Swing was in ecstasy, saying this
was a good sign for American investors... it is very
important for us that they come and install themselves
in Haiti, while World Bank representative Carol Carr
said it was an historic step."
...
Given that latitude, it is not surprising that, quite
contrary to Carr's claim, there has been no
transparency at all in the privatization process. In
1995, for example, it was announced that the
International Finance Corporation (IFC), the most
secretive of the three institutions that make up the
World Bank, was doing a study of the first nine
enterprises to be privatized. The study was paid for
with a US$2 million grant from USAID. Since then, the
US government has also openly funded, and probably
more quietly been heavily involved in, other
activities to move the process forward. However,
neither the IFC study nor any other information on the
estimated values of state assets has ever been
published. Asked about the value of Minoterie this
week, a CMEP employee said there were estimates made
but refused to share them.

There is certain information that was deliberately not
diffused so the offers would be more interesting, he
said.

Despite the obscurity surrounding the deal, it is
still possible to get a vague idea of the value of
Minoterie. What literature and opinions that can be
found indicate that the Haitian- American consortium
was handed the mill on a platter. The Ft. Lauderdale
Sun Sentinel said it appeared the companies got a good
deal and a blessing bestowed by the Washington-based
business lobbying group Caribbean-Latin American
Action is another sign that foreign capital made out
well.

                          ****

What is interesting TODAY is the position of these
same sources/palyers who were criticizing the
government its members and the Lavalas party in the
1990s and as recently as in 2001. Can they explain
their defense of of the government today and why they
are chosing to not address the ISSUES today?

Marina


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