Marketing and public relations are important and I applaud this team for trying to change the negative narrative that plagues Haiti. However, there is a difference between emphasizing the positive and spinning the truth. What Lamothe and Martelly failed to acknowledge during their speech after an American Airline Boeing 737 landed at the airport, is that they had precious little to do with the airport project. It was conceptualized and funded under Rene Preval, Martelly’s predecessor. Such oversight is a recurring theme with this dynamic administration, who has consistently taken credit for hotels and other private sector initiatives as their government’s own achievements. It leaves people with the wrong impression that Preval did precious little while he was in power. Preval’s failure was that, unlike them, he was blasé when it came to taking credit and was more concerned about building roads and schools than trumpeting his projects. By all accounts, Laurent Lamothe is a competent administrator who is doing his best with a bad hand. The prime minister has overcome a shaky start and has lasted as head of Haiti’s government much longer than many pundits anticipated. This is not to say that this administration hasn’t been working. It has. It inherited the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that destroyed the center of the capital, including the National Palace and many government ministries. During a visit in August, the Champs de Mars, Haiti’s largest square, seemed to me like a huge construction zone, as destroyed ministries were being rebuilt. The makeshift tenements that lined the capital’s streets, including the Champs de Mars, disappeared. This government has many projects that are underway to build resorts and make tourism the country’s main economic engine. So it doesn’t need to resort to false propaganda and outright sleigh of hands to convince people that it is working. Still, we won’t know the impact of their labor until several years after they’ve left office. Because the Haitian constitution allows the president to serve only one term and step aside before he or she can run again, it’s difficult to assess immediately the accomplishments of a government. Despite Lamothe’s and this administration’s self- laudatory, history will be the ultimate judge of their success.- Edito by Gary Pierre-Pierre
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 00:05:05 +0000
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