Haiti - Reconstruction : The former Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive gives explanations
Responding in a letter addressed to a Dominican daily, to the allegations both in Haiti than in Dominican Republic who accuse him of having awarded contracts without competitive bidding to DR companies, the former Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive confirmed to have indeed signed some contract without competitive bidding, but explained [once again] that he did it with the authorization of the Haitian Parliament, to accelerate the reconstruction of Haiti in the emergency period.
"...everybody knows in Haiti, that the legal framework in which contracts have been negotiated is based on the powers granted to me by Parliament to sign contracts without competitive bidding." According to former Prime Minister, "despite this latitude, the contracts awarded to different companies of Dominican Republic during the emergency period, have fully complied with the legal framework" recalling that if "many believe that doing business with Dominican companies can be interesting these days, apart from some Haitian companies limited in their capacity to respond to tenders, almost all responses came from Dominican companies already present in Haiti,either working in other projects or for humanitarian reasons."
He stresses that the objective of the Prime Minister resigned, Dr. Garry Conille, by establishing the Audit Commission, is not to fight against corruption, but to award contracts to other companies "I doubt that in the revisions of contracts proposed by the Prime Minister [Conille], the contracts awarded mainly with American and European firms, under the same conditions, can be reviewed..."
