8468: Re: 8464: Electricity,teleco and water utility (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Pierre Jean <pierrejean01@yahoo.com>

Senou --

1. Disconnecting people who are not paying will lead
to some social unrest. Go try what you are suggesting
in Cité Soleil! Even if the political will is there,
EdH will need a PNH battalion to get the job done.

The issue is that, (a) people in poor areas DO pay
someone for their electricity (not necessarily EdH)
and may not appreciate that they are being
disconnected, (b) EdH has not articulated a rational
policy for providing electricity to poor areas.
Subsidies, while probably not a favorite, should be
considered. 

2. Firing the top administrators will not solve the
problem right away because you need to reform an
institution. Assuming you get the right administrator,
it will still take time to get rid of the corruption.

3. You obviously are out of touch with what is going
on at Teleco. If anything, they are TOO quick to
disconnect people these days, even those who pay on
time! I have been a victim of Teleco's aggressive
policy twice this year ... even though I had paid them
in full. Meanwhile, CAMEP certainly tried to solve the
collection problem with a novel approach, and they
seem to have succeeded in improving the payment rate
(even though there is still a significant water supply
shortage.) This means that Teleco, EdH and CAMEP
cannot be compared when one studies payment and
collection (or lack thereof.)

4. No matter what is happening, firing a Directeur
Général in Haiti is not to be taken lightly. While I
personally believe that a DG should be fired for
cause, I am keenly aware of the "political"
implications of a DG firing, hence the reluctance for
governments to do so.

5. Even if all the measures you suggest are applied,
there is no guarantee that they will return these
institutions to "normalcy" ... whatever you mean by
that. That is because you have left out a whole set of
parameters that hamper these institutions and that has
nothing to do with non-paying customers. For example,
how do you propose to stop the government for
siphoning off the hard currency revenues earned by
Teleco, leaving the company with no money for its
caital investment program?

Senou, jwet pou ou.

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