Yves Romain Bastien - Haiti Observer Blog

In Haiti's 2015 presidential elections, the United States, along with other international bodies, provided a total of US$38 million to Haiti's Conseil Electoral Provisoire (Provisional Electoral Council, CEP). The U.S. spent $33 million on the 2015 elections and in last July, has threatened to withhold further funds, because during the last elections, political turmoil resulted massive frauds and unacceptable election results, and following that President Privert announced his decision to re-run the presidential race. Later, President Privert assured the public that the elections of October 9, 2016, will be funded nationally. He has affirmed that the $55 million needed for the elections is available in the public treasury. As per Finance Minister Yves Romain Bastien, the election money received for the last election was never in the hands of the Haitian authorities. He has also said that the upcoming polls would be largely paid for through funds collected from a port, the central bank and Haiti's National Credit Bank. Funding of other government programs would be largely excluded because the port and two banks are good profit making concerns which they ordinarily do not share with the state, he added.

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I guess if you have the power, you can make the rules of the game. According to actual document, the actual Director of the National Old Age Insurance Office (ONA), Renald Benjamin is crying fault as he has discovered that the minister of Finance under the government of Michel Martelly, Wilson Laleau, went deep on the fund of the ONA. The government had borrowed a total of One Billion and two hundred million of gourdes from ONA at zero interest. There transactions took place between September 2015 and January 2016 when Emmanuel Menard was in charge of ONA. So far efforts by the current administration of ONA to recover the money have been unsuccessful. The actual Minister of Finance, Yves Romain Bastien, is asking for the current Director of ONA to give him copy of these loan contracts.

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