bribery - Haiti Observer Blog

Frantz Pierre, a Haitian-American Commissioner in North Miami Beach Florida was indicted Wednesday July 25, 2018, charged with accepting bribe from a strip club owner.

According to Miami Herald, Commissioner Frantz Pierre and his non-profit organization received more than $20,000 from the owner of Dean's Gold strip club in North Miami Beach in exchange for his vote for a special operating license allowing the club to serve alcohol after-hours. He offered his commission vote in exchange for money to a strip club owner in an attempt to renew a business license.

He was charged with one count each of bribery, unlawful compensation, organized scheme to defraud and grand theft and seven counts of money laundering.

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Yolette Mengual has decided to take a break as member of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to make an attempt at clearing her name. She has been accused for some candidates and others in the population for receiving bribes in order to favor a particular candidate in the race. According to a message she wrote in her tweeter account, Yolette Mengual had announced that she temporarily suspended her participation at the CEP in order to lead a battle against the "unfounded accusation" against her

Haitian Kreyol:

Yolette Mengual pou yon ti tan soti nan CEP pou kontre akize li yo

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The Haitian American School Principal who has been in charge of the North Miami Adult Education Center since July 2005 was arrested on On Monday, October 5, 2015 hiring employees and then demanding illegal kickback.

His arrest came after authorities say Ridore took $1,000 in cash to hire a man, then demanded illegal kickbacks from him. What the Haitian Principal did not know was that the man he hired was actually an undercover from Miami police detective unit who was secretly recording their conversations.

According to authorities, this is not something that happened for the first time. Investigators uncovered several similar cases where School Principal Ridore had been taking advantage of his position to make illegal gains. They also discovered two ex-employees received more than $14,000 for work they did not do

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Miami is home to one of the biggest populations of the Haitian Diaspora, 30% of North Miami's residents. Créole is the primary and perhaps only language they speak. When candidates run for office in North Miami, they depend on Haitian radio to present themselves to listeners.

The Haitian community in North Miami does not have access to media, such as public access TV. If a community newspaper exists, illiteracy among them keeps information undigested. What is left for those voters is Haitian radio.

Haitian radio hosts exercise unbridled influence. What they say--whether true or not--is received by their Créole-speaking audience as God's truth. At its best, Haitian radio keeps listeners abreast of local council developments, at its worse, conversations devolve into race baiting and political name-calling.

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We have new information on the rape case of Josue Pierre-Louis.

New information coming from the father of the rape victim would suggest that the team working for Josue Pierre-Louis is willing to use cash and influence to keep the case from going any further.

It has been disclosed that the team defending former Justice Minister and actual President of the CEP, Losue Pierre-Louis, have been trying to buy the opposition. The father of the alleged rape victim said says that the Haitian government offered his daughter $300,000.00 and a job at a consul office outside of the country if she would drop her rape case against Josue Pierre-Louis.

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Jean Rene Duperval a former Haitian telecom director was recently sentenced to a 9 year jail term for bribery charges. Duperval was the director of international relations for Haiti Telecom, the sole provider of land line telephone service in Haiti a company which was allowed to transact with foreign telephone companies to provide various telephone services across the countries. He was arrested with charges of having engaged in various questionable activities between the years 2003 and 2006 where evidence shows that he was actually engaging in money laundering schemes and hiding the fact with various ways developed to evade the long arm of law.

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The ongoing social-economic challenges facing Haiti has led to search of alternative sources of income by citizens. High level of unemployment has found many people indulging themselves in illegitimate ways of raising a living.

Due to these challenges the crime rate in Haiti is high. The most rampant crime in the recent past has been kidnapping and the threat is more likely to increase due to inability of the security forces to curb the situation. The Haitian National Police have experienced significant strain in bringing kidnappers to custody. Since the 2006 kidnapping peak period security has been reinforced by the presence of UN-formed police and the UN stabilization forces (MINUSTAH).

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The Haitian government is still plagued by issues such as bribery, kickback and embezzlement of funds. At least this is what the 2011 Global Corruption Report indicated.

"Bare Volè, bare Volè"

Haiti ranks 175th in the report, which puts the country among the most corrupt nations in the world for 2011.

The report also indicated that our neighbors are doing much better to fight corruption in their country. Bahamas ranks 21 for doing a good job the delivery of government services to its citizens. The united states ranks on 24th position.

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