Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors submits the report of its investigation of Petrocaribe funds

Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors submits the report of its investigation of Petrocaribe funds

The long awaited report from Haiti’s Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Litigation was finally submitted Friday to the Senate. The court was investigating how over 4 billion US dollars of Petrocaribe funds were spent.

Petrocaribe is an oil alliance of many Caribbean states with Venezuela to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment. The alliance was launched on June 29, 2005 in Venezuela. In 2013 Petrocaribe joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), in order to go beyond oil and promote economic cooperation.

Funds generated by the program Petrocaribe in Haiti from March 2008 to April 2018 are estimated at 4,237,598,789.12 US dollars, according to the report from Haiti’s Court of Auditors.

From September 2008 to September 2016, the Court identified 409 projects from resolutions adopted by cabinet ministers in the amount of 2,238,164,040.74 billion US dollars.

The Court of Auditors noted three types of irregularities in the use of PetroCaribe funds under 3 Presidents and 6 Prime Ministers. There were administrative irregularities, regulatory irregularities, questionable management practices and irregularities that caused harm to the project and the community

In 2012 and 2013, US $13,780,000 were used for streetlights projects, according to the Court of Auditors

Of the 20 contracts signed in 2012 and 2013 in connection with these projects, only 6 went through the bidding process as stipulated in the rules.

The Besuco S.A  / Suntech Solar consortium had a contract for the installation of 1200 street lights, they only installed 600, or 50% while they received 100% of the payment per the  contract.

The firm Enersa, which had a contract for the installation of 1200 street lights, only installed 59.7% although they received 87.2% of the contract amount.

The list of other people and institutions accused of bad management of $ 13,780,000 PetroCaribe funds for streetlights includes: Jovenel Moise (COMPHENER S.A), former BMPAD Director Michael Lecorps who was also Chief Authorizing Officer for assigning contracts, former special adviser for electricity Rene Jean-Jumeau and former Finance minister Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie.

The complete report is available in French through this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DSCrJlxDaEDfYdN0mxys9h_2fEHiZ2tu/view …

MS / HT