a1400: President announces funds for education, agriculture, roads(Metropole) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: MKarshan@aol.com

Haiti: President announces funds for education, agriculture, roads in
northeast
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Mar 21, 2002

Text of report by Haitian Signal FM radio on 20 March

The head of state returned to the capital yesterday, Tuesday, after a visit
to the northeast of the country. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide visited
Fort-Liberte particularly on Monday. During this visit, the president
promised the people funds amounting to 9m dollars he says he will give for
the improvement of the situation of the northeastern towns. According to
President Aristide, 22m gourdes will be invested in education, 50m gourdes
will be invested in the health sector and he will give about 488m gourdes for
agricultural purposes, that is, to help the people of the northeast to live.
Let us listen to the explanations of President Aristide who was speaking in
Fort-Liberte:

[Aristide - recording] We in the government have major responsibilities to
assume, the responsibility to establish security, the responsibility to
establish peace, the responsibility to disarm those who are not supposed to
have weapons, the responsibility to lessen violence so that it can eventually
come to an end, the responsibility to build roads, the responsibility to
irrigate the land so that it can produce more food and the responsibility to
establish more schools and more hospitals. Meanwhile we do not have the right
to lie to the people or practise demagoguery.

Although we do not yet have all the necessary funds to do it - [changes
thought] I am going to tell you how much money we have to do some of these
works in the northeast while the [words indistinct] we can spend 488,541,000
gourdes for agricultural matters in the Department of the Northeast. There
are tractors. There are 25 [words indistinct]. When this money is being
spent, you who are in the literacy classes, while you are learning to write
agriculture, land and water, must ask where the money has gone, whether the
money made it possible for water to come to the lands, where the [word
indistinct] lakes are. While you are learning to write [word indistinct]
lakes, you must ask questions about that.

You must learn to write tractor while looking for the tractors and who has
them. The literacy classes must give you the possibility to carry on a
dialogue and to ask questions in order to show transparency, to participate
in correcting what needs to be corrected and in deciding what needs to be
decided. Then, literacy will not remain something abstract but it will become
something concrete, because this money is intended for the Northeast.

Similarly, there are 7.7m gourdes for water alone. Water is something rare in
Haiti. Only 20 per cent of the people in the country can get some water to
drink and you are seeking water for the lands, it is very difficult. There is
not yet much but I have given the little that is available. We shall do what
is possible with it.

As far as the roads are concerned, 368m gourdes are available for them. You
see that paving has begun to be laid here and paving will also be laid in
Ouanaminthe. We shall repair several roads while expecting to get more money
to build nice roads. We must do what we can and this is what we are doing
with these funds.

What you are supposed to do in the literacy centres, [where] you are learning
to write Wout [road], W, O, U, T, you must ask: Where is what Father Titide
[Aristide's nickname] mentioned? Where is what President Titide talked about?
What has been done with that money? Who is the person in charge? Then, the
person in charge of it will answer. He will give you explanations.

Source: Signal FM Radio, Port-au-Prince, in Creole 1230 gmt 20 Mar 02

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.
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