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Two years after the devastating earthquake in
Haiti, many complain that they haven’t seen
where billions in donations were spent.
Important Remarks:
Half the money world governments pledged to
Haiti never showed up. Half the money American
private donors raised for Haiti hasn’t been
spent. And many millions went to things like
gasoline, car rentals and salaries.
Two years after the ground shook in Haiti, more
than 500,000 people remain on the street, many
of them wondering why all that assistance did
not lift them out of dire straits. In a nation
where the minimum wage is $5 a day,
international aid groups say seven-figure
donations aimed at rebuilding the health care,
housing and school systems were just not enough
to alleviate a country mired in poverty.
So while families continue to live in plastic
tents, some organizations are running dry and
major reconstruction projects are taking years
longer than anticipated. Even after the billions
were spent and billions more promised experts
say it will be another 10 years of spending
before people see serious results.
“The world’s response to the disaster is slowly
coming to an end,” said Sam Worthington, who
heads InterAction, an umbrella group of major
international aid groups. “I look at what’s left
to be done and how much money is left — $360
million — there’s no way that much amount of
money can address the problems that exist down
there.”
A 7.0 earthquake devastated the capital two
years ago Thursday, killing 316,000 people and
toppling hundreds of buildings. The world rushed
to Haiti’s aid, sending money via text message,
telethon, and debt relief and through foreign
ministries.
The International Red Cross alone raised more
than $1 billion. Just in the United States,
Americans actually donated more than they
pledged, and chipped in $1.36 billion. Of
that, $725 million was used to keep quake
survivors alive, under tents and free from
disease, Worthington said. The rest is on
long-term planning drawing boards.
“It was about one-tenth of what the Haitian
government said it needed,” Worthington said.
“There will be wholesale areas and families that
will not see results.”
But just as many Haitian survivors suspected,
huge amounts of money went toward supporting the
relief and recovery operation in intangible ways
that were difficult for most Haitians to accept
or understand. The lack of an educated civil
society meant agencies had to send in experts
for everything from accounting to human
resources, feeding the perception that aid
benefited foreigners as much as it helped
Haitians.
The Center for Economic Policy Research think
tank found that beltway area for-profit
development companies received 83 percent of
U.S. Agency for International Development Haiti
contracts. About 2.5 percent of the funds went
to Haitian companies, and less than half of one
percent went to Haitian non-profit groups.
Agencies also burned through money on soaring
rents and overpriced supplies. After the quake,
landlords charged $7,000 or more to rent a
single house and quadrupled the prices of
materials.
Consider: Project Medishare, the University of
Miami hospital, spends $30,000 a month on
electricity alone. It costs another $3,500 a
month to rent an SUV in Haiti.
Tax records show Save the Children’s Haiti
financial director — one of 1,200 Haiti
employees — earns almost $200,000 annually.
Oxfam is among the few groups that spell out how
much it spent just on management: $14.4 million.
It also spent $150,000 a month trucking water
and $30,000 per month on warehouse fees.
“You have to have security, you have to have
cars, you have to have a driver — one in the
morning and one in the afternoon,” lamented
Oxfam acting country director Cecilia Millan.
“Many people got rich selling supplies. Well,
actually, not a lot of people got rich — a few
people who could do business got very rich.”
Save the Children CEO Carolyn Miles said
personnel costs were particularly high, because
there were not enough trained experts in Haiti.
She acknowledges that the international
community could have done a better job of
training local Haitians.
“There’s criticism that the money did not go to
the Haitian government. I think it’s wrong to
say it did not go to the Haitian people,” she
said, noting that most of 1,200 people hired
were Haitian. “I don’t look back and see
mistakes. I think we saved lives and made lives
better. I know we got more kids in school.”
Jake Johnston, a researcher
at the CEPR who contributes to a Haiti aid
watchdog blog, said many organizations appeared
to spend money pleasing their boards and donors
— not the quake survivors.
“A lot of good work was
done; the money clearly didn’t all get
squandered,” Johnston said. “A lot just wasn’t
responding to needs on the ground. Millions were
spent on ad campaigns telling people to wash
their hands. Telling them to wash their hands
when there’s no water or soap is a slap in the
face.”
He pointed out that $170
million of the American Red Cross’s funds went
to other non-profit groups, meaning each
receiving organization got to chip away at the
donations to cover overhead.
“As far as I am concerned,
I don’t see what they did with the money,” said
Wisner Frazme, 26, who shares a shack made of
worn tarp, Canada written on the side, with
seven relatives. “Yes, they gave us some stuff
to fight cholera; they gave us water, aqua tabs
to treat the water. But right now, you don’t
even get that. You have to buy your own aqua tab
and water.”
He lives at one of Haiti’s
largest tent cities, where tattered canopies
stand empty, and the names of the organizations
that mounted them are faded out by the sun.
The free soap, toothpaste
and medical care long ago disappeared at the
Acra tent city, as it did at hundreds of others
in quake-affected communities in this
poverty-stricken nation. These days, not even
the latrines get cleaned regularly, leaving
residents to wonder where the aid groups went,
and what they did with all that money.
“They used to give us a
little bit of help. Others visited us, gave us
advice, but there was nothing accomplished,”
said Mirlande Louis Jeune, a mother of three who
has called the tent city in Delmas 32
neighborhood home since the massive quake
destroyed her rental unit.
Aid organizations say
more than 21,000 houses have been repaired, and
100,000 transitional shelters built. About half
the rubble was cleared, 267 miles of road was
built, and 650 schools repaired.
“Quite honestly, donor
funding is never going to be enough,” said Tom
Adams, the U.S. State Department’s Haiti special
coordinator. “In some areas, we are really just
starting, because we wanted it to be a
Haitian-led effort, not a donor-led effort. We
are criticized for not having spending the money
faster, but in some ways that’s a virtue. To
spend intelligently, it has to be done in
partnership with the government and other
donors.”
Many international
donors have been slow to comply with their
pledges: only half the funds promised by the
international community have been dispersed.
United Nations reports show countries such as
Venezuela promised $1.3 billion but by December
had only paid out $24 million.
Many groups are now trying
to draw camp-dwellers back to their
neighborhoods by repairing homes and providing
community services.
The American Red Cross
built about 5,000 transitional houses and fixed
the same number of broken ones. By this time
last year, The Red Cross had built 133 homes.
Now it boasts 4,900.
But that organization
and other large non-governmental organizations
are continuously under fire here for having
large balances. The American Red Cross alone has
$150 million left, which it plans to use on
long-term projects.
“The positive news is
there really has been significant progress.
We’ve had the ability to transfer from emergency
relief to recovery and focus on long-term
solutions in housing (and) safer, more secure
homes,” said Red Cross spokeswoman Julie Sell.
“Everybody wishes we had made a little more
progress in Haiti, not just the Red Cross.”
Miami Herald Staff writers
Jacqueline Charles & Frances Robles contributed
to this report.
Program for January 12, 2012 (Haiti earthquake
two years after)
DOCUMENTARY:
"Nou Bouke: Haiti’s Past, Present and Future"
will air on WPBT Channel 2 at 9 p.m. Thursday,
Jan. 12
Tuesday
The International Organization for Migration’s
E-shelter & CCCM Cluster Coordination Unit will
host an exhibition of photographs and video
depicting life within the camps, 5 p.m. to 9
p.m., Hotel Montana, Rue Frank Cardozo Bourdon,
Pétion-Ville, Haiti.
Thursday
Haiti
President Michel Martelly and Dominican
President Leonel Fernandez will inaugurate the
University of Henri Christophe in Limonade, 11
a.m.
The U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti will
have a private ceremony with members of families
of lost colleagues and representative of the
mission.
Miami
Miami Community Partnership for Local Haitian
Relief Efforts releases strategic plan to
support the healing of the Haitians, 2 p.m.,
Haitian Neighborhood Center, Sant La, 5000
Biscayne Blvd., Suite 110.
Commemoration Mass, 7:30 p.m. Notre Dame D’Haiti
Catholic Church, 130 NE 62nd St., Little Haiti.
Friday
U.S. Ambassador Ken Merten, U.S. Rep. Frederica
Wilson, D-Miami, and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.,
will update efforts to help Haiti, 4 p.m., Miami
Edison Middle School Auditorium, 6101 NW Second
Ave., Miami. Free and open to the public.
Saturday
South Florida Haitian community leaders host the
Second annual Tri-County Save Haiti Bike Ride
from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade counties,
beginning at 6 a.m. Lake Park City Hall. After
arriving at Jaco Pastorious Park in Oakland
Park, there will be a symbolic reading of 112
names of victims of the earthquake. The names
are from www.112haiti.com, a digital memorial
wall created after the earthquake to honor the
dead. Bikers are expected to arrive at Little
Haiti Cultural Center in Miami at 4:45 p.m.
where the commemoration will feature Haitian
musicians.
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