Government

A few photographs surfaced on the internet which shows the photo of a man and a young girl in compromised position in a swimming pool. The man in photo looks like former senator and advisor of President of Haiti, Joseph Lambert. Lambert however denied being the person shown in the photograph.

Lambert who was previously the senator of South-East and is a family man said that his detractors have used Photoshop or similar image manipulating software to create fake images and attack him. These attacks come, says Lambert, because he is very strong contender of legislative elections that are coming up.

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Senators in the Haitian Parliament are frustrated, concerned, and angry over two postponements by Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to convoke a senate meeting on pressing issues: budget allocations and terrorist-support activities.

Primature Secretary General, Lucien Francoeur, Lamothe's representative, sent letters to Senator Steven Benoit, cancelling meetings scheduled for May 28th and 30th to address the issues. Benoit feels Lamothe has patronized the opposition by not directly responding himself.

Benoit and his supporters, Moise Jean-Charles, Jean-Baptiste Bien-Aimé, Jean William Jeanty, Wesner Polycarpe, John Annick, and François Joseph need answers why 2012 expenditures favored the National Fund for Education. They charge this was a mis-use of Treasury monies and a devaluation of the Haitian gourde. They think the monies should have been used to restore the National Palace damaged by the 2010 earthquake.

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The role of Prime Minister in Haiti is not an easy one to fill; just ask anyone on the list, including Yvon Neptune and Former Haitian Prime Minister Robert Malval, though one was forced out of office while the other chose to leave.

Born in Port-au-Prince on the 11th of July, 1943, Malval was 50 years old and had accomplished a sound career outside of politics before his nomination by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1993.

After studying internationally, in the United States at the University of Miami where he earned a political science degree, and in Paris where he undertook graduate studies in International Affairs, Robert Malval seemingly lost interest in politics and took to working for his step-father, who was proprietor of a printing house. He later quit to pursue his own publishing and printing company, and carried on to be a successful businessman before turning his sights back to the world he'd studied to be a part of, politics.

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Every century is graced by certain men who have helped to write the course of many countries, including their own. At the turn of the 20th Century, in 1904 to be exact, Haiti gave birth to just one of its contributions to that circle.

When Emile Saint-Lot first caught the fever to defend his country, he was all but a boy, witnessing first-hand the military invasion by the US, which occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1937. He would go on to study and practice journalism and to teach law, finally becoming a senator and civil court chief justice. His election as senator of the West on the 19th of June, 1946 came a year after his taking the role of Haiti's first United Nations Ambassador. He also served as a Security Council member, with the task of voting on whole nations' independence. He would cast this powerful vote for countries like Libya (about whose independence he presented an impassioned speech to the UN in 1957), Somalia and Israel.

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A major Canadian Daily newspaper and online publisher, TheStar.com, has reported that a powerful ally of the Haitian government made damaging allegation about the government. The lead singer of the popular music band RAM and the owner of the historic hotel in port-au-Prince Hotel Oloffson, Richard Morse, told the newspaper that he left the government because of corruption and infrastructure sabotage.

According to TheStar.com, Richard Morse stated: " I saw proof of workers filling drainage canals just before the rainy season, which resulted in flooding. He also said: "If you are creating disasters, it can only be for aid money," . In addition, he stated that he has seen evidence of "fake cheques, people getting paid who no longer worked there."

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The declaration of intent issued by Port-au-Prince's former mayor, Frank Romain, in a recent interview with HPN, harkens back to the impassioned speeches and noble intents of many of our past revolutionaries of victories great and small. The ex-military man has put himself at the forefront of a campaign for the rebuilding of the country, saying he is prepared to 'do it gracefully' and can make himself and his skills available for the good of Haiti.

Frank Romain has called for people to work together in an effort to revitalize the struggling nation, a concept closely linked to an effort to allow exiled Haitian citizens, former leaders in particular, to return to their country without fear. His crusade stems from his reported abhorrence of the foreign military occupation of Haiti. He further comments on the guilt he feels when he sees the foreigners and witnesses Haiti's continued lack of the sovereignty, a state he wished to have returned during his political tenure.

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Leaving behind, at least for a while, the much cooler climate to be found in the province of Quebec, Canada, where he now resides, Theodore Achilles' return to Haiti, and its hot sun, almost six years ago was the subject of much speculation.

Once occupying the post of President Jean-Claude Duvalier's Minister of State, Achilles was, like many others when the reign of the Duvalier's ended, forced to leave Haiti and settle elsewhere. It would take twenty years for him to return to his country of birth, a visit he was most keen to denounce as one of a political motive.

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Ralph Theano was expelled from the Lower House Thursday, April 4.

"Theano out", cried many members of the

This is preliminary information obtained by Haiti Observer. We just learned that Ralph Theano, the minister in charge of relations with Parliament, had quite a difficulty at the Haitian Parliament today (April4, 2013).

Minister in charge of Relations with the Parliament had been declared persona non grata by parliamentary associated with PRI

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The great political debate continues as claims made by the Haitian President, Michel Martelly as to the true fruits of the government's labor, where the unemployment crisis is concerned, are being vociferously refuted by members of the political sphere. Martelly is accused f grossly exaggerating the number of jobs created by his administration since his ascension to power, putting the number at 400,000.

According to his critics, this is just the latest o Martelly's hyperbolic claims, causing both outright and covert criticism. Senator Jean-Charles Moïse joked on a recent Radio Scoop FM show that Martelly did create 400,000 jobs, if one were to take those created in the fields of drug trafficking, kidnapping and money laundering into consideration. When, inevitably, given pause by the show's host, Garry Pierre Paul Charles, Moïse reiterated more seriously that the number was not justified by honest or permanent jobs.

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Richard Morse, former Special Envoy for Political Affairs in the Martelly government, quit in January 2012. He gave no explanation then, but has now agreed to talk about it.

He said he resigned due to endemic corruption within Martelly's administration. Morse, Martelly's cousin, related how he attempted to get investigations started on two occasions without success. Working at the National Palace, he saw proof of officials' malfeasance. Many of them were collecting paychecks, although no longer on the government payroll. Morse also discovered public-works laborers pouring water into run-off ditches just before Haiti's storm season. The reason was self-evident to Morse: "If you are creating disasters, it can only be for aid money." Morse reported the criminal acts to government authorities, who blatantly ignored him, much to his distress.

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