Haiti: Seven Places Where Earthquake Money Did and Did Not Go

By Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas 
CommonDreams.org
January 3, 2012

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/03-2

Haiti, a close neighbor of the US with over nine million
people, was devastated by earthquake on January 12, 2010.
Hundreds of thousands were killed and many more wounded.

The UN estimated international donors gave Haiti over $1.6
billion in relief aid since the earthquake (about $155 per
Haitian) and over $2 billion in recovery aid (about $173 per
Haitian) over the last two years.

Yet Haiti looks like the earthquake happened two months ago,
not two years. Over half a million people remain homeless in
hundreds of informal camps, most of the tons of debris from
destroyed buildings still lays where it fell, and cholera, a
preventable disease, was introduced into the country and is
now an epidemic killing thousands and sickening hundreds of
thousands more.

It turns out that almost none of the money that the general
public thought was going to Haiti actually went directly to
Haiti. The international community chose to bypass the
Haitian people, Haitian non-governmental organizations and
the government of Haiti. Funds were instead diverted to other
governments, international NGOs, and private companies.

Despite this near total lack of control of the money by
Haitians, if history is an indication, it is quite likely
that the failures will ultimately be blamed on the Haitians
themselves in a "blame the victim" reaction.

Haitians ask the same question as many around the world
"Where did the money go?"

Here are seven places where the earthquake money did and did
not go.

One. The largest single recipient of US earthquake money was
the US government. The same holds true for donations by other
countries.

Right after the earthquake, the US allocated $379 million in
aid and sent in 5000 troops. The Associated Press discovered
that of the $379 million in initial US money promised for
Haiti, most was not really money going directly, or in some
cases even indirectly, to Haiti. They documented in January
2010 that thirty three cents of each of these US dollars for
Haiti was actually given directly back to the US to reimburse
ourselves for sending in our military. Forty two cents of
each dollar went to private and public non-governmental
organizations like Save the Children, the UN World Food
Program and the Pan American Health Organization. Hardly any
went directly to Haitians or their government.

The overall $1.6 billion allocated for relief by the US was
spent much the same way according to an August 2010 report by
theUS Congressional Research Office: $655 million was
reimbursed to the Department of Defense; $220 million to
Department of Health and Human Services to provide grants to
individual US states to cover services for Haitian evacuees;
$350 million to USAID disaster assistance; $150 million to
the US Department of Agriculture for emergency food
assistance; $15 million to the Department of Homeland
Security for immigration fees, and so on.

International assistance followed the same pattern. The UN
Special Envoy for Haiti reported that of the $2.4 billion in
humanitarian funding, 34 percent was provided back to the
donor’s own civil and military entities for disaster
response, 28 percent was given to UN agencies and non-
governmental agencies (NGOs) for specific UN projects, 26
percent was given to private contractors and other NGOs, 6
percent was provided as in-kind services to recipients, 5
percent to the international and national Red Cross
societies, 1 percent was provided to the government of Haiti,
four tenths of one percent of the funds went to Haitian NGOs.

Two. Only 1 percent of the money went to the Haitian
government.

Less than a penny of each dollar of US aid went to the
government of Haiti, according to the Associated Press. The
same is true with other international donors. The Haitian
government was completely bypassed in the relief effort by
the US and the international community.

Three. Extremely little went to Haitian companies or Haitian
non-governmental organizations.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research, the absolute
best source for accurate information on this issue, analyzed
all the 1490 contracts awarded by the US government after the
January 2010 earthquake until April 2011 and found only 23
contracts went to Haitian companies. Overall the US had
awarded $194 million to contractors, $4.8 million to the 23
Haitian companies, about 2.5 percent of the total. On the
other hand, contractors from the Washington DC area received
$76 million or 39.4 percent of the total. As noted above, the
UN documented that only four tenths of one percent of
international aid went to Haitian NGOs.

In fact Haitians had a hard time even getting into
international aid meetings. Refugees International reported
that locals were having a hard time even getting access to
the international aid operational meetings inside the UN
compound. "Haitian groups are either unaware of the meetings,
do not have proper photo-ID passes for entry, or do not have
the staff capacity to spend long hours at the compound."
Others reported that most of these international aid
coordination meetings were not even being translated into
Creole, the language of the majority of the people of Haiti!

Four. A large percentage of the money went to international
aid agencies, and big well connected non-governmental
organizations (NGOs).

The American Red Cross received over $486 million in
donations for Haiti. It says two-thirds of the money has been
contracted to relief and recovery efforts, though specific
details are difficult to come by. The CEO of American Red
Cross has a salary of over $500,000 per year.

Look at the $8.6 million joint contract between the US Agency
for International Development (USAID) with the private
company CHF for debris removal in Port au Prince. CHF is
politically well-connected international development company
with annual budget of over $200 million whose CEO was paid
$451,813 in 2009. CHF’s connection to Republicans and
Democrats is illustrated by its board secretary, Lauri Fitz-
Pegado, a partner with the Livingston Group LLC. The
Livingston Group is headed by the former Republican Speaker-
designate for the 106th Congress, Bob Livingston, doing
lobbying and government relations. Ms. Fitz-Pegado, who
apparently works the other side of the aisle, was appointed
by President Clinton to serve in the Department of Commerce
and served as a member of the foreign policy expert advisor
team on the Obama for President Campaign. CHF "works in Haiti
out of two spacious mansions in Port au Prince and maintains
a fleet of brand new vehicles" according to Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone, in an excellent article by Janet Reitman,
reported on another earthquake contract, a $1.5 million
contract to the NY based consulting firm Dalberg Global
Development Advisors. The article found Dalberg’s team "had
never lived overseas, didn’t have any disaster experience or
background in urban planning... never carried out any program
activities on the ground - " and only one of them spoke
French. USAID reviewed their work and found that "it became
clear that these people may not have even gotten out of their
SUVs."

Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton announced a
fundraising venture for Haiti on January 16, 2010. As of
October 2011, the fund had received $54 million in donations.
It has partnered with several Haitian and international
organizations. Though most of its work appears to be
admirable, it has donated $2 million to the construction of a
Haitian $29 million for-profit luxury hotel.

"The NGOs still have something to respond to about their
accountability, because there is a lot of cash out there,"
according to Nigel Fisher, the UN’s chief humanitarian
officer in Haiti. "What about the $1.5 to $2 billion that the
Red Cross and NGOs got from ordinary people, and matched by
governments? What’s happened to that? And that’s where it’s
very difficult to trace those funds."

Five. Some money went to for profit companies whose business
is disasters.

Less than a month after the quake hit, the US Ambassador
Kenneth Merten sent a cable titled "THE GOLD RUSH IS ON" as
part of his situation report to Washington. In this February
1, 2010 document, made public by The Nation, Haiti Liberte
and Wikileaks, Ambassador Merten reported the President of
Haiti met with former General Wesley Clark for a sales
presentation for a Miami-based company that builds foam core
houses.

Capitalizing on the disaster, Lewis Lucke, a high ranking
USAID relief coordinator, met twice in his USAID capacity
with the Haitian Prime Minister immediately after the quake.
He then quit the agency and was hired for $30,000 a month by
a Florida corporation Ashbritt (known already for its big no
bid Katrina grants) and a prosperous Haitian partner to lobby
for disaster contracts. Locke said "it became clear to us
that if it was handled correctly the earthquake represented
as much an opportunity as it did a calamity" - Ashbritt and
its Haitian partner were soon granted a $10 million no bid
contract. Lucke said he was instrumental in securing another
$10 million contract from the World Bank and another smaller
one from CHF International before their relationship ended.

Six. A fair amount of the pledged money has never been
actually put up.

The international community decided it was not going to allow
the Haiti government to direct the relief and recovery funds
and insisted that two institutions be set up to approve plans
and spending for the reconstruction funds going to Haiti. The
first was the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) and
the second is the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF).

In March 2010, UN countries pledged $5.3 billion over two
years and a total of $9.9 billion over three years in a
conference March 2010. The money was to be deposited with the
World Bank and distributed by the IHRC. The IHRC was co-
chaired by Bill Clinton and the Haitian Prime Minister. By
July 2010, Bill Clinton reported only 10 percent of the
pledges had been given to the IHRC.

Seven. A lot of the money which was put up has not yet been
spent.

Nearly two years after the quake, less than 1 percent of the
$412 million in US funds specifically allocated for
infrastructure reconstruction activities in Haiti had been
spent by USAID and the US State Department and only 12
percent has even been obligated according to a November 2011
report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The performance of the two international commissions, the
IHRC and the HRF has also been poor. The Miami Herald noted
that as of July 2011, the $3.2 billion in projects approved
by the IHRC only five had been completed for a total of $84
million. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which
was severely criticized by Haitians and others from its
beginning, has been effectively suspended since its mandate
ended at the end of October 2011. The Haiti Reconstruction
Fund was set up to work in tandem with the IHRC, so while its
partner is suspended, it is not clear how it can move
forward.

What to do

The effort so far has not been based a respectful partnership
between Haitians and the international community. The actions
of the donor countries and the NGOs and international
agencies have not been transparent so that Haitians or others
can track the money and see how it has been spent. Without
transparency and a respectful partnership the Haitian people
cannot hold anyone accountable for what has happened in their
country. That has to change.

The UN Special Envoy to Haiti suggests the generous instincts
of people around the world must be channeled by international
actors and institutions in a way that assists in the creation
of a "robust public sector and a healthy private sector."
Instead of giving the money to intermediaries, funds should
be directed as much as possible to Haitian public and private
institutions. A "Haiti First" policy could strengthen public
systems, promote accountability, and create jobs and build
skills among the Haitian people.

Respect, transparency and accountability are the building
blocks for human rights. Haitians deserve to know where the
money has gone, what the plans are for the money still left,
and to be partners in the decision-making for what is to
come.

After all, these are the people who will be solving the
problems when the post-earthquake relief money is gone.

[Bill Quigley is Associate Director of the Center for
Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola
University New Orleans.  He is a Katrina survivor and has
been active in human rights in Haiti for years. He volunteers
with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH)
and the Bureau de Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port au
Prince.]

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