Quote:
Critics of the non-governmental organizations abound. The NGOs still have something to respond to about their accountability, because there is a lot of cash out there,'' said Nigel Fisher, the United Nation's chief humanitarian officer in Haiti. But what about the $1.5 to $2 billion that the Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and matched by governments, etc.? What’s happened to that? And that’s where it’s very difficult to trace those funds.‘’ 39.
all of this available at: www.haitiaction.net
My question: isn’t this a major failure? Does anybody lose their job over this?
And, why has the whole aid program for Haiti been mismanaged. Even Bill Clinton admits it is a disaster.
Most critics blame the following for being less than forthcoming on how the aid supposedly made it’s way to the disaster stricken country:
- The American Red Cross
- Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation
- Hillary Clinton and the US State Department
- Beth Hogan and The US Agency for International Development
- The InterAmerican Development Bank
- The United Nations
I’m not familiar with Beth Hogan and The US Agency for International Development, or The InterAmerican Development Bank, but the other guys on that list all have reputations for being very un-transparent with what happens to money. Almost certainly, large portions of that $2 Billion have been diverted to various people’s private accounts.
The money doesn’t merely get stolen or wasted by Western aid organizations, but also by Haiti’s incredibly corrupt government and implausibly sprawling bureaucracy. I recall a news article wherein low-level Haitian government workers were complaining that there was no money for them to ‘distribute’ (i.e. steal), because it had all been pilfered by higher levels of the government.
Yes. The answer is mostly this. It’s incredibly difficult and frustrating to do business and render aid in third world countries for this reason.
The money was just resting in my account.
There is a first for everything I guess.
What made me laugh-$39 million spent on a luxury hotel-most likely never occupied. Who is going to vacation in a country with no clean water supply, rampant disease, and violent widespread crime?
You’ve got to account for the money you embezzled somehow. Seriously, this is most likely a false expense to cover what would otherwise be a $39 million hole in the books.
Wouldn’t it be easier to pay off the accountant?
You can pay off your own accountant, but not the external auditor.
Lots of people, actually. Haiti, with all of it’s issues, has some of the most beautiful beaches and mountains in the world. If Haiti is to ever recover from the earthquake it will be via tourism. I have always gone as a part of a humanitarian mission to the interior, mountainous region. Even though it wasn’t a vacation, we usually stayed the last night in a hotel or resort closer to the airport just to make sure we could gett here on time.
Because of the cruise industry, Labadee is the most known resort area but there are others (like Club Indigo, where I have spent a few days). The resorts are generally very safe (Haitians aren’t stupid, they know tourist generate the bulk of jobs on the island). I know of no one who has ever been a crime victim while at a Haiitian resort property. Step off the property, however, and all bets are off (though I have never been victemized off site, either). The problem is the corruption at every level of government. Money generated there does not go back into improving the country, but to feathering the nests of the “leaders”.
If you go anywhere but Labadee by ship, you will see incredible poverty on your way to the resort. It is the poorest nation on earth and it’s not for everyone, but don’t dismiss it out of hand.
They know how to play the game. Take your cut, move the money along, not your problem what happens to it. And how dare anyone criticize them?!?! They are charitable organizations!!!
Considering it shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic (DR, which dominates 2/3 of the island). Hispaniola is only about 400 miles in length. The whole island is roughly the size of South Carolina, while Haiti is just slightly bigger then New Jersey. The DR has a thriving tourism business. There’s no reason the Haiti couldn’t eventually get there also. The $13 billion in aid spent in the right places, would help.
There are real and valid critiques going on around this within the aid community.
At the same time, some of the items in the article are unfair. In a disaster zone, between building fast, building well, and building with local firms, you are lucky if you get to pick two. There is no way to walk in to a devastated country with no infrastructure and quickly put up quality infrastructure using local capacity. Nor is there a way to spend money quickly, but have minimal staff to oversee the money, AND somehow keep perfect control of the money. If you are moving lots of money quickly, you need to have staff to manage it OR you have to accept a certain amount of misdirection. And you aren’t going to get good staff-- people who can have perfectly comfortable lives in DC or Geneva–without paying them and giving them safe and comfortable place for them to live.
Added to this is the well-documented land tenure issues that have plagued reconstruction. The earthquake destroyed many land tenure records and deeds, and land rights were not great to begin with. It’s impossible to build on contested land, and between squatters, land grabbers, destroyed deeds and every Tom, Dick and Harry with an informal land title, figuring out who has a legal right to authorize building on what land has been nearly impossible.
The real moral of the story is that giving massive amounts of money right after a disaster is a terrible way to do things. It’d be MUCH better to focus on preparing countries for disasters before they happen. Unfortunately, we just don’t think that way when we donate.
Haiti has a fair amount of tourism, including quite a bit from cruise lines. Not everyone has the same idea of a fun vacation as you. But hotels of this type are mostly useful to business people. Haiti has quite a few luxury hotels, as does basically every country on Earth.
Haiti is not the poorest country on Earth. There are more than 20 countries that are poorer (GDP per capita PPP.) It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
Once again, the attitude of the Red cross is amazing…“hey we lost $2 billion…it was bad record keeping”-yeah, like I would believe a story like that. One interesting point-Papa Doc’s son ( Duvalier) showed up after the earthquake-he must have been attracted by the money.
The thing that sticks out to me is that the critics are “Critics of the non-governmental organizations.” They have an agenda, and are pissing about the NGOs not having the ‘accountability’ that these critics want. In other words, X group wants Y group to open their records to X. Standard BS in the turf war that is politics. Group X wanted some of the money that Group Y got. Starts stirring the hornets nest.
You are absolutely right, I should have put “among the” in my post. I would submit, however, that differences are minimal when one is talking about the bottom 10% of almost anything.
I went on vacation to Haiti in 1996. I stayed in a nice hotel. It was a good trip. At no point did I have any worries about the water supply or disease, and I saw no crime, violent or otherwise. A lot of people trying to take money, of course, but that’s no different from the relentless upselling that goes on here.