Impasse?
What’s blocking the capital’s path to reconstruction?
Part 3 of 3
Port-au-Prince, June 9 – If two competing proposals weren’t enough, Haiti Grassroots Watch (HGW) learned of at least one more strategic planning document which appears to at least have some overlap with the Prince Charles Foundation.
Perhaps it’s normal for a client – like the Haitian government – to pay more than one firm for multiple design proposals so that there options? But 17 months after the earthquake, having at least two competing plans, and no decision, seems inefficient.
The Canadian urban development firm Daniel Arbour and Associates (DAA) is one of the better-kept secrets in the reconstruction process.
According to multiple sources, DAA is working on a series of projects for the Ministry of Planning and of External Cooperation, although the projects – and the contracts – have so far been concealed from the media and the public.
Contacted by HGW, a high level staff person at the Ministry of Planning who asked not to be cited – since technically, no Haitian ministry officials are supposed to speak to the media without the relevant minister’s approval – confirmed that DAA is indeed working on a “national strategy” urban planning document and on a study of “a new spatial orientation in the context of the recovery.”
According to the official, the DAA work does not duplicate the work done by the Foundation.
“You are talking about two different things,” he said.
But without further details, without concrete information, that claim was impossible to verify.
Like the Foundation, DAA is paid by the Haitian government. The official said he did not know if DAA – which has worked for the government in the past – was chosen via a bidding process, nor did he know the total amount of the contract.
Asked if the rumored $2 million dollar-figure circulating in the hallways of competing planning firms was close, he only said: “The cost might be less or it might be more than $2 million."
Asked whether or not the communication between the ministries and also with City Hall was clear and coordinated, he admitted there were often communication problems, saying “even inside the ministry we don’t have enough communication.”
Despite numerous telephone calls and emails, Minister of Finances Ronald Baudin did not respond to requests for clarification on whether or not the Ministry of Planning contracts were put out to bid, and/or if the DAA strategic planning and "spacial orientation" represented a duplication of the work previously done by the Prince Charles Foundation.
DAA’s Quebec office referred all inquiries to a DAA representative in Haiti at the time this article was written – Rene Hubert – but did not respond to the several emails from Haiti Grassroots Watch.
Port-au-Prince Mayor Jason said he was aware of the DAA project but “nobody from the Ministry of the company has contacted City Hall.”
“I am open to all discussions,” Jason continued, “but there is a game being played to weaken the mayor’s office which wants to play the dominant role it is supposed to in the city.”
There are likely other reasons for the competing plans and jockeying for control – most notably the question of who will get the eventual contracts.
“We shouldn’t hide this – reconstruction is first and foremost a question of money and investments. A lot of money,” Jason admitted.
Whose reconstruction? Whose Port-au-Prince?
As ministers and mayors argue and promote different plans, Port-au-Prince continues its downward spiral. Every afternoon the rains wash plastic bottles, animal carcasses, plant waste, wood and charcoal, feces, rubble, and just about anything else one can imagine into the pot-holed streets and into ravines which dump into the bay.
Every other store is closed, or worse. Some have been repaired by their owners. Others razed. But there is little rebuilding, since nobody knows what plan will be followed. Not even the planners.
UN-HABITAT wrote a “Strategic City-Wide Spatial Planning” document for the capital in 2009.
The findings – which recommended municipalities take control of their destinies – won’t surprise anyone. The authors wrote:
Port-au-Prince is in many ways a malfunctioning and badly governed city that lacks the ability to provide its residents with the most basic urban services…
The Haitian state and the city authorities do not have the capacity to plan and manage metropolitan Port-au-Prince. In addition to a lack of financial resources, … [the] eight municipalities share the responsibility of the city’s management with numerous central government bodies, with unclear and overlapping mandates and responsibilities, and no system for coordination.
The 2009 findings are more than relevant in 2011.
UN-HABITAT is involved in strategic planning today, also. According to Country Director Jean-Christophe Adrian, UN-HABITAT will assist DAA and the Ministry of Planning in their strategic plan.
“We are preparing a big citizens forum,” he said.
Asked about the other plans, Adrian said all of them are part of “the discussion.”
“The idea is to have the leadership put all of this together,” he said. “We are trying to create a space for dialogue.”
Both the Foundation and the Trame/CHRAD teams claim they have enabled dialogue already.
But the Foundation events were held at the fancy Hotel Montana in Petion-ville, up the hill from Port-au-Prince. The mayor's invitation-only May 19 Trame/CHRAD meeting – held on the sixth floor of the Digicel building – was a “Who’s Who” of the Haitian elite. A previous Trame/CHRAD meeting – of about 50 people – took place even higher up the hill, at the Karibe Convention Center. (Still, Ligondé is quick to point out the few camp dwellers in the meeting’s group photo.)
Typical street near downtown – rubble and garbage nearly blocking an intersection.
(This was before the rains.) Credit: Timo Luege, UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee
Most residents, small business owners, refugees and street vendors have not been included in the competing plan sessions which are taking place mostly behind closed doors.
Maggy Duchatelier Gaston has been living and working on Rue de la Reunion for over 25 years. The aging baker has already put US$5,000 of her own money into repairing Princess Bakery, Bar and Cooking School.
“No authority has ever come here. Nobody,” Gaston said, even though the bakery is in the “public interest” zone.
Gaston put a few pastries in a box to be delivered. One of the few sales of the day. The giant display case was mostly empty, with only one sliced cake. She opened three months ago but business has been terrible. Major businesses, and the tax office across the street, have not been rebuilt, so there is very little foot traffic.
The baker has never heard of the “SOS Downtown” group of powerful property-owners and merchants, nor has she ever been invited to any meetings with anyone.
“I have never heard anything about what’s planned. We’ll probably die before anything is done,” she said.
Gaston hasn't given up. The lone cake attests to that. But one cake does not a bakery make. And a few lots cleared of rubble is not reconstruction.
Students from the Journalism Laboratory at the State University of Haiti's Faculty of Human Sciences helped write and report this series.
Haiti Grassroots Watch is a partnership of the AlterPresse online news agency, the Society for the Animation of Social Communications (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Brpadcasters (REFRAKA) and the community radios of the Association of Haitian Community Radios (AMEKA).
