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Haiti is the way it is now, fundamentally, because of its...

Jim - May 16 2011, 11:48 PM

Haiti is the way it is now, fundamentally, because of its political leaders.

The business class are profiters and as long people have money to buy the stuff they import from China and the US and elsewhere, they will continue to sell to them.

Sure, if past Haitian political leaders had taken it to them to sturcture the country in such a way, to make electricity available to all parts of the country and to each household, to educate the population, to truly establish policies regarding agriculture, so that Haitian could feed themselves from local production, create good roads throughout the country, have a true policy for tourism, a great source of cash and employment, help develop provincial economies in the province, not just p.a.p, in orther words, true exercise of country building with insfracstrure for long term development, well, the elite or business class would have to follow with this. But, another reason Haiti has not been able to do much is the issue of corruption.

Again, the political leaders.

In Haiti, the state is viewed as the means to acquire wealth, as the stock market is viewed in the developed countries.

Now, past political leaders, by their inaction, have created huge expectations from the business class and since these people are not accustomed to paying taxes, sure, they will resent start doing so equitably now. The fact is that, as long important major insfracstrure nation building decisions are made and the political class is able to carry them out, then, business class would follow suit. Absolutely.

Somehow, it is in their interest to do so. Bigger market is equal bigger and more profit.

Look at Digicel.

(although this company now is getting involved with a lot more community stuff - like building schools etc.) The others, in a political context where corruption is not tolerated, will soon find it in their interest to give back for good corporate citizenry and to avoid resentment from the people.

That is why, sad to say, corruption is one FUNDAMENTAL problem of Haiti and the diaspora could help a lot, since the diaspora is not as desparate as the locals for small money to overlook things or government regulations.

The needs for a system where it is very hard to buy your way inside government, then, Haiti has a good chance to move forward.

So, the need for administratative procedures with computers for simple and immediate verification, stuff like that will help, because superior and higher verification is possible.

Now, Martelly, at the beginning will have serious problems with a large part of the political class in Haiti.

The old dinausures, specially, the people from Lavalas that have been integrated into Preval government and state administration.

These people will not be able to function with the new way of doing business and will try to undernime Martelly.

It is for these reasons, I truly believe there should be a real clean up, to target those people and to remove them and to help change the culture of the state as no longer the stock market.

Even in the national assenbly and senators, you have some in there.

Think of the Inite people and Preval accolytes.

For example, a fellow like Mr. Lambert...

etc etc, there should be a way to get rid of them.
So, Martelly will succeed, if he is able to attach these intrinsic issues, part of the current fabric of the haitian political culture.

May the force be with him.
Jim

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