Lack of money and governance-part of the problem

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Reply to Msg 4852

I was in the Dominican Republic last year when I saw the news on TV that there was a big fire in an old building in Port-au-Prince.

The firefighters did respond but they had no water to fight the flames!!! The Dominicans of course who are racist against Haitians took advantage of the situation and made fun of the Haitans by saying that "look at this; they do not even have water in Haiti - how can they expect to even govern themselves".

It was really a big shame.

You said something interesting about the unsanitary conditions in downtown Port-au-Prince in regards to the street vendors all over the place.

Not too long ago I drove from Santo Domingo to Petionville.

Right after the border you can see a drastic constrast with the Dominican Republic.

First the roads on the Haiti side were horrible.

At one point, I almost swirved off a ravine if I was not paying attention.

I actually was hurring up before it got to dark to drive.

Then again, I am not as young as I used to be. I am retired in the Dominican Republic but would prefer to live in Haiti :-).

Bon mange! Sauce Pois! Anyway, when I got to Petionville, I saw 4 men in their 20's bathing naked in a crowded street.

They were using the water from a faucet attached to a building.

I have been retired in the Dominican Republic for many years and have never seen that in Santo Domingo, nor Santiago or Puerto Plata.

The next day I went downtown PAP with a friend of mines from Australia.

As soon as he saw the scene of the merchants selling in the middle of the streets near Champ-de-Mars, he got disgusted.

He said to me that he would never come back to Haiti.

Thereafter, I submitted an advice to the Preval administration to enforce the law and move the street vendors to a zone outside of the downtown area. To put them under a large tent similar to a flee market.

This idea would keep the city clean.

Now, you have to understand Preval is a good president and would like to see changes for Haiti.

This is a small change.

Does not require a lot of money to set up an outdoor flee market.

Remember Preval is not all powerful in the administration.

He has to go through his parliament and senate to make things happen.

His party Lespwa is only a minority in his administration.

Their heads are not together and they are not united.

Therefore, things are slow to move or will not move. After investigating the situation with the street vendors which to me seems pretty simple to solve.

Just move them to a different zone under a flee market.

However, my investigation revealed that you have gangs in Haiti controlling street corners.

This includes downtown PAP, Cite Soleil and Martissant.

The gangs apparently are also controlling the small street vendors.

But the Preval administration needs to understand sometimes you have to do things by force when you are looking for change in a country.

By force they have to move the street vendors and deal with the ignorant gang members.

I still stay positive and I believe that the street vendor situation will be dealt with as well.

Greg Peters, November 27 2007, 6:05 PM

Topic: HAITI'S ECONOMY/ HOW TO IMPROVE IT!

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