24931: Hermantin(News)Putting Haiti on path to progress (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Apr. 30, 2005


CARIBBEAN
Putting Haiti on path to progress

BY GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE
editor@haitiantimes.com

When Boca Raton resident Gérard Latortue was tapped to be Haiti's Prime
Minister, the idea was that the former U.N. official would lead a government
of technocrats and steer the hemisphere's most troubled nation toward free
and fair elections.

This mandate was not a small feat, considering that Haiti has struggled for
more than 200 years to govern itself. Generations of Haitian professionals,
like Latortue himself, had left the country, and many had little desire of
returning home.

Therefore, Latortue's administration, for the most part, consisted of old
political hands and not the highly skilled technocrats that were touted. But
a year after Latortue assumed the office, he has faced a nagging insurgency,
made up mostly of supporters of exiled president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The
insurgency has been effective in a most critical aspect: keeping away the
promised billion dollars of aid to the impoverished country. As a result,
the country seems tattered, and the current administration has struggled to
restore order.

But there seems to be a glimmer of hope in an otherwise cloudy landscape.
Despite the political and social troubles, the minister of finance is in the
black with a $17 million budget to undertake small development projects in
Haiti. These focus on construction of clinics, schools and arterial roads,
which officials hope will create badly needed jobs. They've been able to
deal with inflation -- which was at 12 percent a month and was reduced to
the current 1 percent a month rate. These numbers might improve if the U.S.
Congress can approve the HOPE Act, which gives Haitian manufacturers access
to the American market.

Still, Latortue's legacy may be that he was able to hold things together
enough for elections in November. That was a large part of his mandate. All
the signs coming out of Haiti show clearly that the elections will happen.

The international community is determined to provide the funding and
security necessary. Therefore, Latortue should now start concentrating on
achieving something that no other leader in Haiti's history has been able to
do. He needs to reform public administration and create an entity that is
autonomous, apolitical and technocratic. In his road map for Haiti's
recovery, the most important legacy that the administration will leave for
the next one is the creation of a development agency along with a
development bank that will be an autonomous, depoliticized public entity
planning for the country's future and guiding its socio-economic development
and growth.

This agency will support all segments of Haitian society and will draw out
some of Haiti's development priorities from the national dialogue to be
undertaken before election, which should drive a consensus toward those
ends. It will take a major and difficult decision on the part of the prime
minister for all segments to respect the development agency and agree on the
desperate need for its formation and successful implementation.

Latortue should put all of his weight behind this project. He believes in it
but there are many forces in Haiti that have trouble relinquishing power.
This agency is the perfect magnet to attract some of the technocrats that
fill the professional classes of Haiti's foreign nongovernmental and
international organizations and of New York, Miami, Montreal and Boston. It
also could be one of the most effective ways to soothe investors' skepticism
about plunking down money in the unstable climate enveloping Haiti.

This is the same path taken by the so-called Asian tiger countries as they
set out to move from backward, pastoral nations to industrialized, urbane
centers. Currently, the Chinese, who sent 200 riot police as part of the
U.N. police, have adopted this quasi-public agency to spur economic
development. It has been so successful that MBA students across the country
visit China as part of their course of study. For Haiti to have a chance, it
can't continue business as usual. The model that the country has been using
has proven woefully inadequate. Latortue has a tall task ahead of him and
the next eight months will prove critical for Haiti, once again.

Garry Pierre-Pierre is editor and publisher of the Brooklyn-Based Haitian
Times newspaper.