Corruption, tax evasion, smuggling are scourges in Haiti. This is to provide an update on the issue, that Atouriste, Director of the Unit for Combating Corruption (ULCC), the 18 government commissioners, Mario Andrésol, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) and the Directors of the Central Financial Intelligence Unit (UCREF), the Directorate General of Taxes (DGI) and of Customs gathered Monday at the premises of the DGI as part of the Inter Institutional Committee formed in early June by the Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe to support its policy of zero tolerance.

Following this meeting, during a press conference, Ronald December, the Secretary of State for Tax Reform explained "[...] We met this morning to follow up on the creation of the Inter-institutional Committee of planning and coordination of the fight against tax fraud, against money laundering, corruption and against smuggling [...] Today we met to establish the action plan that we will establish soon...

We know that tax fraud are a scourge for the state revenue for the country's image [...] if some pay their taxes and others do not, the state authority can not be restored, if there are traders who pay customs duties and other not, the state authority can not be restored if there are no decisions, that are taken to combat corruption that has plagued the system.

We decided to get together this morning to coordinate our actions. This is the DGI, and customs that must provide the material to the ULCC, the UCREF, the public prosecutor. There are many decisions that were taken this morning, to establish an action plan, that will include fixed and mobile brigades, that will be deployed throughout the country. We will not go into details to tell you how the plan will be executed, but I can announce that there are brigades that are established with the police, customs, DGI and even in some cases with judges of peace so that we arrived to effectively give an answer to all these problems that plague the society and that make that often we depend on foreign aid, while in principle, we could ensure a set of aspect of our development by ourselves."

Fresnel Jean-Baptiste, the Director General of Customs has indicated that several operations have been organized in recent days, the alleged fraudsters have begun to be identified, more than a dozen trucks and a large quantity of goods have been confiscated, stressing that drivers were arrested but that also exporters and customs officials are under investigation and that the owners of goods, will also be brought to justice.

Mario Andrésol, for his part, has confirmed that the National Police would play its role in the fight against corruption required the cooperation of all citizens.

HL/ S/ HaitiLibre