Corruption scandal regarding aid from Venezuela to Haiti
The president of Haiti was accused of directing a scheme of diversion of funds by the Superior Court of Accounts that published a report on mismanagement of aid sent by Venezuela
The judges and the various investigations found that in 2014 the State ordered the rehabilitation of the same sections of a route to two different companies, Argitrans and Betexs, an d which had the same tax number and the same technical personnel.
The court document states: “The two companies performed the same work differently on the same date.” Reason why it is presumed that it is “just a scheme of diversion of funds.”
The now president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, before coming to power in 2017 was the director of Agritrans and received $ 700,000 to develop a road project but its trade was the production of bananas.
Additionally, disturbing data were found with hundreds of irregularities in the projects launched in the last decade by Haiti and that at the time were financed by Petrocaribe; the program launched by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Undoubtedly, the pandora’s box of corruption was opened and all the governments that succeeded each other since then are somehow implicated in this case. Between 2008 and 2018, Haiti was part of the Petrocaribe program, which allowed several Latin American and Caribbean countries to acquire oil products at advantageous prices.
“All this waste was orchestrated in the name of the fight against poverty and social exclusion, to the detriment of the most vulnerable populations who should be the beneficiaries of this program,” the report denounced. More than 60% of the population of Haiti lives below the poverty index and food insecurity threatens 2.6 of the country’s 11 million inhabitants.
L.Sáenz
Source: El Nuevo Herald
