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<font size=2>January 03, 2012<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/03/haiti-after-the-quake/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/03/haiti-after-the-quake/</a> <br>
<br>
Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go<br><br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>Haiti After the
Quake</b></font></h1><font size=2>by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER
RAMANAUSKAS<br><br>
Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with over nine million people, was
devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010. Hundreds of thousands
were killed and many more wounded.<br><br>
The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6 billion in
relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per Haitian) and over $2
billion in recovery aid (about $173 per Haitian) over the last two
years.<br><br>
Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago, not two
years. Over half a million people remain homeless in hundreds of informal
camps, most of the tons of debris from destroyed buildings still lays
where it fell, and cholera, a preventable disease, was introduced into
the country and is now an epidemic killing thousands and sickening
hundreds of thousands more.<br><br>
It turns out that almost none of the money that the general public
thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to Haiti. The
international community chose to bypass the Haitian people, Haitian
non-governmental organizations and the government of Haiti. Funds
were instead diverted to other governments, international NGOs, and
private companies.<br><br>
Despite this near total lack of control of the money by Haitians, if
history is an indication, it is quite likely that the failures will
ultimately be blamed on the Haitians themselves in a “blame the victim”
reaction.<br><br>
Haitians ask the same question as many around the world “Where did the
money go?”<br><br>
Here are seven places where the earthquake money did and did not
go.<br><br>
<i>One. The largest single recipient of US earthquake money was the
US government. The same holds true for donations by other
countries. <br><br>
</i>Right after the earthquake, the US allocated $379 million in aid and
sent in 5000 troops. The Associated Press discovered that of the $379
million in initial US money promised for Haiti, most was not really money
going directly, or in some cases even indirectly, to Haiti. They
documented in January 2010 that thirty three cents of each of these US
dollars for Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse
ourselves for sending in our military. Forty two cents of each
dollar went to private and public non-governmental organizations like
Save the Children, the UN World Food Program and the Pan American Health
Organization. Hardly any went directly to Haitians or their
government.<br><br>
The overall $1.6 billion allocated for relief by the US was spent much
the same way according to an August 2010 report by the US Congressional
Research Office: $655 million was reimbursed to the Department of
Defense; $220 million to Department of Health and Human Services to
provide grants to individual US states to cover services for Haitian
evacuees; $350 million to USAID disaster assistance; $150 million to the
US Department of Agriculture for emergency food assistance; $15 million
to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration fees, and so
on.<br><br>
International assistance followed the same pattern. The UN Special
Envoy for Haiti reported that of the $2.4 billion in humanitarian
funding, 34 percent was provided back to the donor’s own civil and
military entities for disaster response, 28 percent was given to UN
agencies and non-governmental agencies (NGOs) for specific UN projects,
26 percent was given to private contractors and other NGOs, 6 percent was
provided as in-kind services to recipients, 5 percent to the
international and national Red Cross societies, 1 percent was provided to
the government of Haiti, four tenths of one percent of the funds went to
Haitian NGOs.<br><br>
<i>Two. Only 1 percent of the money went to the Haitian
government. <br><br>
</i>Less than a penny of each dollar of US aid went to the government of
Haiti, according to the Associated Press. The same is true
with other international donors. The Haitian government was
completely bypassed in the relief effort by the US and the international
community.<br><br>
<i>Three. Extremely little went to Haitian companies or
Haitian non-governmental organizations. <br><br>
</i>The Center for Economic and Policy Research, the absolute best source
for accurate information on this issue, analyzed all the 1490 contracts
awarded by the US government after the January 2010 earthquake until
April 2011 and found only 23 contracts went to Haitian companies.
Overall the US had awarded $194 million to contractors, $4.8 million to
the 23 Haitian companies, about 2.5 percent of the total. On the
other hand, contractors from the Washington DC area received $76 million
or 39.4 percent of the total. As noted above, the UN documented
that only four tenths of one percent of international aid went to Haitian
NGOs.<br><br>
In fact Haitians had a hard time even getting into international aid
meetings. Refugees International reported that locals were having a
hard time even getting access to the international aid operational
meetings inside the UN compound. “Haitian groups are either unaware
of the meetings, do not have proper photo-ID passes for entry, or do not
have the staff capacity to spend long hours at the compound.”
Others reported that most of these international aid coordination
meetings were not even being translated into Creole, the language of the
majority of the people of Haiti!<br><br>
<i>Four. A large percentage of the money went to international aid
agencies, and big well connected non-governmental organizations
(NGOs). <br><br>
</i>The American Red Cross received over $486 million in donations for
Haiti. It says two-thirds of the money has been contracted to
relief and recovery efforts, though specific details are difficult to
come by. The CEO of American Red Cross has a salary of over
$500,000 per year.<br><br>
Look at the $8.6 million joint contract between the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) with the private company CHF for debris
removal in Port au Prince.<sup> </sup> CHF is politically well-connected
international development company with annual budget of over $200 million
whose CEO was paid $451,813 in 2009.<sup> </sup> CHF’s connection to
Republicans and Democrats is illustrated by its board secretary, Lauri
Fitz-Pegado, a partner with the Livingston Group LLC. The
Livingston Group is headed by the former Republican Speaker-designate for
the 106<sup>th</sup> Congress, Bob Livingston, doing lobbying and
government relations. Ms. Fitz-Pegado, who apparently works the
other side of the aisle, was appointed by President Clinton to serve in
the Department of Commerce and served as a member of the foreign policy
expert advisor team on the Obama for President Campaign. CHF “works
in Haiti out of two spacious mansions in Port au Prince and maintains a
fleet of brand new vehicles” according to Rolling Stone.<br><br>
Rolling Stone, in an excellent article by Janet Reitman, reported on
another earthquake contract, a $1.5 million contract to the NY based
consulting firm Dalberg Global Development Advisors. The article
found Dalberg’s team “had never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster
experience or background in urban planning… never carried out any program
activities on the ground…” and only one of them spoke French. USAID
reviewed their work and found that “it became clear that these people may
not have even gotten out of their SUVs.”<br><br>
Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton announced a fundraising
venture for Haiti on January 16, 2010. As of October 2011, the fund
had received $54 million in donations. It has partnered with
several Haitian and international organizations. Though most of its
work appears to be admirable, it has donated $2 million to the
construction of a Haitian $29 million for-profit luxury hotel.<br><br>
“The NGOs still have something to respond to about their accountability,
because there is a lot of cash out there,” according to Nigel Fisher, the
UN’s chief humanitarian officer in Haiti. “What about the $1.5 to
$2 billion that the Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and
matched by governments? What’s happened to that? And that’s
where it’s very difficult to trace those funds.”<br><br>
<i>Five. Some money went to for profit companies whose business is
disasters. <br><br>
</i>Less than a month after the quake hit, the US Ambassador Kenneth
Merten sent a cable titled “THE GOLD RUSH IS ON” as part of his situation
report to Washington. In this February 1, 2010 document, made
public by The Nation, Haiti Liberte and Wikileaks, Ambassador Merten
reported the President of Haiti met with former General Wesley Clark for
a sales presentation for a Miami-based company that builds foam
core houses.<br><br>
Capitalizing on the disaster, Lewis Lucke, a high ranking USAID relief
coordinator, met twice in his USAID capacity with the Haitian Prime
Minister immediately after the quake. He then quit the agency and
was hired for $30,000 a month by a Florida corporation Ashbritt (known
already for its big no bid Katrina grants) and a prosperous Haitian
partner to lobby for disaster contracts. Locke said “it became
clear to us that if it was handled correctly the earthquake represented
as much an opportunity as it did a calamity…”<sup> </sup> Ashbritt and
its Haitian partner were soon granted a $10 million no bid
contract. Lucke said he was instrumental in securing another $10
million contract from the World Bank and another smaller one from CHF
International before their relationship ended.<br><br>
<i>Six. A fair amount of the pledged money has never been actually
put up. <br><br>
</i>The international community decided it was not going to allow the
Haiti government to direct the relief and recovery funds and insisted
that two institutions be set up to approve plans and spending for the
reconstruction funds going to Haiti. The first was the Interim
Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) and the second is the Haiti
Reconstruction Fund (HRF).<br><br>
In March 2010, UN countries pledged $5.3 billion over two years and a
total of $9.9 billion over three years in a conference March 2010.
The money was to be deposited with the World Bank and distributed by the
IHRC. The IHRC was co-chaired by Bill Clinton and the Haitian Prime
Minister. By July 2010, Bill Clinton reported only 10 percent of
the pledges had been given to the IHRC.<br><br>
<i>Seven. A lot of the money which was put up has not yet been
spent. <br><br>
</i>Nearly two years after the quake, less than 1 percent of the $412
million in US funds specifically allocated for infrastructure
reconstruction activities in Haiti had been spent by USAID and the US
State Department and only 12 percent has even been obligated according to
a November 2011 report by the US Government Accountability Office
(GAO).<br><br>
The performance of the two international commissions, the IHRC and the
HRF has also been poor. The Miami Herald noted that as of July
2011, the $3.2 billion in projects approved by the IHRC only five had
been completed for a total of $84 million. The Interim Haiti
Recovery Commission (IHRC), which was severely criticized by Haitians and
others from its beginning, has been effectively suspended since its
mandate ended at the end of October 2011. The Haiti Reconstruction
Fund was set up to work in tandem with the IHRC, so while its partner is
suspended, it is not clear how it can move forward.<br><br>
<b>What to do <br><br>
</b>The effort so far has not been based a respectful partnership between
Haitians and the international community. The actions of the
donor countries and the NGOs and international agencies have not been
transparent so that Haitians or others can track the money and see how it
has been spent. Without transparency and a respectful partnership
the Haitian people cannot hold anyone accountable for what has happened
in their country. That has to change.<br><br>
The UN Special Envoy to Haiti suggests the generous instincts of people
around the world must be channeled by international actors and
institutions in a way that assists in the creation of a “robust public
sector and a healthy private sector.” Instead of giving the money
to intermediaries, funds should be directed as much as possible to
Haitian public and private institutions. A “Haiti First” policy
could strengthen public systems, promote accountability, and create jobs
and build skills among the Haitian people.<br><br>
Respect, transparency and accountability are the building blocks for
human rights. Haitians deserve to know where the money has gone,
what the plans are for the money still left, and to be partners in the
decision-making for what is to come.<br><br>
After all, these are the people who will be solving the problems when the
post-earthquake relief money is gone.<br><br>
<b><i>Bill Quigley</b> teaches at Loyola University New Orleans, is the
Associate Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and
volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. He is a
contributor to </i>Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of
Illusion<i>, forthcoming from AK Press. </i> Bill can be reached at
<a href="mailto:quigley77@gmail.com">quigley77@gmail.com</a>.
<br><br>
<b><i>Amber Ramanauskas</b> is a lawyer and human rights
researcher. A more detailed version of this article with full
sources is available. Amber can be reached at
<a href="mailto:gintarerama@gmail.com">gintarerama@gmail.com</a>
. <br><br>
<br><br>
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