Michel Martelly, 400,000 jobs created since in office, challenged

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.

Giving President Martelly some leeway in his pronouncements, Mirlande Manigat, Former First Lady, considers jobs founded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development), or by other international groups as part of the estimation. She, however, states that those jobs were also not permanent and would not have numbered 400,000.

President Martelly announced the total on the same stage as these, his two loudest rebuttals, making the radio show a must-listen broadcast for many. Of this 'many', 6% of the adult, unemployed mass, numbered at six million, should be benefitting from the supposed boom in jobs. Holes yet again appear as the nature of some of these reported jobs, being in the field of reconstructing devastated government buildings and private companies is, again, transitory.

Meanwhile, Haiti still suffers in the grip of the wider world recession. Just a year before, the projected rate for growth, according to the IMF was at 7.8%. This year 2.5% is the reality.

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Read more: Martelly Employment, 400,000 jobs, Exaggeration, Government

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