#5341: Re: #5290: Grey's comments about the sale of Teleco etc. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JRAuguste1@aol.com

Key words: airport, seaport, service, privatization, black-out, water, 
teleco, telephones. 

Dear Mambo Racine: 

You asked me to imagine what the American people would say about....... ok, 
here it is, and as you said, "without taking things out of context". !
 
I know that the American people would not put up with constant black-outs, 
water at their faucets once a week and Teleco type of service where one has 
to wait years for a telephone line installation notwithstanding bribes, 
either requested by and/or simply offered to Teleco employees. Let's not even 
discuss receiving and having to pay Teleco bills for services not rendered 
and never to be rendered. Only the present Haitian government staunched 
partisans and the present lavalas government itself oppose the sale of those 
companies in Haiti. I doubt very much that people not directly financially 
benefitting from those companies, those suffering from chronic lack of 
service from those quarters in Haiti are opposed to the sale of those 
companies or much yet give a hoot to whom they are sold, as long as they 
receive the paid for service from the new owners. The bottom line is this: if 
you can't do the job, like it is not being done in Haiti for years, step 
aside and let someone who can do it at the helm. The American people, at the 
very least would say: "put up or shut up; your quality, worthiness and 
self-respect are reflected in your work product". 
 
And to the Mambo's next paragraph, I say: two wrongs do not make a right. If 
my neighbors have a habit of jumping out of their 20th floor windows without 
parachute that is their business. I got no business or rationale for pushing 
them or helping their exit out of said windows.  

".............. If Haiti is a big 
transhipper, it's because the USA is a big CONSUMER!  For every nasty 
Colombian or Haitian coke runner, there is some nasty American on the other 
end waiting to receive the shipment."
 
The Mambo further indicates that: 

"........Haiti is NOT going to sell her airports and 
 seaports, and the USA and the greedy "investors" are going to have to live 
 with the facts."

As to the above quote from the Mambo I wonder what the greedy Haitians 
leaders are doing with the money they extract from passengers foreign and 
Haitian alike at the Port-au-Prince international airport upon departure. I 
mean there is no toilet paper in the airport bathroom, no public telephone, 
no a/c, no chairs to sit on until one passes the douane and the check up 
points, no security just outside of the airport, constant chaos from the 
people snatching your luggage out of your hand for a buck. So do not sell but 
PLEASE provide proper service and accomodation for the $ collected. After all 
the airport and the seaport are the first places observed by foreigners 
visiting Haiti and first impression are very important. Provide the visitors 
for a reason to return. Please give us less rhetoric, less politics and 
better service.