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Haiti, a close
neighbor of the U.S. with over nine million people, was
devastated by earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. Hundreds of
thousands were killed and many more wounded.
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.
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
lies 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.
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 Haitian
government. Funds were instead diverted to other governments,
international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private
companies.
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.
Haitians ask the same question as many around the world: “Where
did the money go?”
Here are seven
places where the earthquake money did and did not go.
One.
The largest single recipient of
U.S. earthquake money was the U.S. government. The same holds
true for donations by other countries.
Right after the earthquake, the U.S. allocated $379 million in
aid and sent in 5000 troops. The Associated Press
discovered that of the $379 million in initial U.S. 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 33 cents of each of these U.S. dollars for
Haiti was actually given directly back to the U.S. 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.
The overall $1.6
billion allocated for relief by the U.S. was spent much the same
way according to an August 2010 report by the U.S. 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 U.S. states to cover
services for Haitian evacuees; $350 million to USAID disaster
assistance; $150 million to the U.S. Department of Agriculture
for emergency food assistance; $15 million to the Department of
Homeland Security for immigration fees, and so on.
International
assistance followed the same pattern. The UN Special Envoy for
Haiti reported that of the $2.4 billion in humanitarian funding,
34% was provided back to the donor’s own civil and military
entities for disaster response, 28% was given to UN agencies and
NGOs for specific UN projects, 26% was given to private
contractors and other NGOs, 6% was provided as in-kind services
to recipients, 5% to the international and national Red Cross
societies, 1% was provided to the Haitian government, four
tenths of 1% of the funds went to Haitian NGOs.
Two.
Only 1% of the money went to the
Haitian government.
Less than a
penny of each dollar of U.S. aid went to the Haitian government,
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 U.S. and the international
community.
Three.
Extremely little went to
Haitian companies or Haitian non-governmental organizations.
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 U.S. government after the January 2010
earthquake until April 2011 and found only 23 contracts went to
Haitian companies. Overall, the U.S. had awarded $194 million to
contractors, $4.8 million to the 23 Haitian companies, about
2.5% of the total. On the other hand, contractors from the
Washington, DC area received $76 million or 39.4% of the total.
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
Haiti’s people!
Four.
A large percentage of the money
went to international aid agencies, and big, well-connected
NGOs.
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.
Look
at the $8.6 million joint contract between the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) with the private company CHF
for debris removal in Port au Prince. CHF is
politically well-connected international development company
with annual budget of over $200 million whose CEO was paid
$451,813 in 2009. 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 106th
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
Commerce Department 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.
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.”
Presidents George W. Bush
and Bill Clinton announced a fund-raising venture for Haiti on
Jan. 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.
“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.”
Five.
Some money went to for-profit
companies whose business is disasters.
Less
than a month after the quake hit, the U.S. Ambassador Kenneth
Merten sent a cable subtitled “THE GOLD RUSH IS ON” as
part of his situation report to Washington. In this Feb. 1, 2010
document, made public by The Nation, Haiti Liberté, 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.
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…” 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.
Six.
A fair amount of the pledged
money has never been actually put up.
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).
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% of the pledges had been
given to the IHRC.
Seven.
A lot of the money which
was put up has not yet been spent.
Nearly two years
after the quake, less than 1% of the $412 million in U.S. funds
specifically allocated for infrastructure reconstruction
activities in Haiti had been spent by USAID and the U.S. State
Department and only 12% has even been obligated according to a
November 2011 report by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office.
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 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 HRF 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.
What to do
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.
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.
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.
After all, these
are the people who will be solving the problems when the
post-earthquake relief money is gone.
Bill
Quigley 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. Amber
Ramanauskas is a lawyer and human rights researcher. A more
detailed version of this article with full sources is
available. Bill can be reached at
quigley77@gmail.com. Amber can be reached at
gintarerama@gmail.com. |
