Brussels, 01/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - Seven months after the earthquake on 11 January, which devastated Haiti, Michele Striffler MEP (EPP, France), the permanent rapporteur for humanitarian aid and the vice president of the Parliament's development committee, has drawn up a shocking account of the current situation in the country. Striffler has just returned from a Parliamentary mission to the island (Port-au-Prince, 24-28 June) to assess the situation on the ground and check that EU humanitarian funds were being used appropriately (EUROPE 10170). She said that reconstruction was on the point of stalling. Her mission report will be made to the Parliamentary development committee on Tuesday 13 July.
Michelle Striffler expressed her concern about the “apparent absence of leadership from the local authorities and very weak government capacity for carrying out the reconstruction process” (EUROPE 10170). She appealed to the Haitian authorities to find a swift solution for providing accommodation to the homeless, which had found some sort of refuge in the makeshift camps in public places. Relocating the homeless is difficult because of the lack of land available, a non-existent rentals system and the fact that many of the small plots of land have already been seized by the homeless diaspora.
In a press release published on Wednesday 30 June, Striffler regretted that the temporary commission for reconstruction in Haiti had barely begun its work and that its mandate and internal regulation was still the subject of debate. According to the rapporteur, it is urgent that the $10 billion (€9 billion) in aid promised by the international community at the New York conference on 31 March, arrives as soon as possible, to ensure reconstruction in the country and help humanitarian actors working on the ground.
In Striffler's opinion, it is incoherent that workmen and lorries have been brought from the US and Europe, whereas Haitians only have a few shovels and wheelbarrows to evacuate the rubble still blocking the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The permanent rapporteur for humanitarian aid was, nevertheless, able to measure the scale of work carried out by many of the humanitarian actors, which had prevented the violent earthquake from turning into a serious health crisis.
During the course of this evaluation mission, Striffler met the Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, humanitarian organisations active on the ground and members of the temporary commission for reconstruction in Haiti, in charge of approving reconstruction projects financed out of the Haiti Reconstruction Fund, managed by the World Bank. (A.N./transl.fl)