Haiti waiting for pledged aid

With just a week to go before fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still tied up in Washington. At fault: bureaucracy, disorganization, and a lack of urgency, the Associated Press learned in interviews with officials in the State Department, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House, and the UN Office of the Special Envoy. One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he says will be wasteful.

Meanwhile, deaths in Port-au-Prince are mounting, as quake survivors scramble to live without shelter or food.

“There are truly lives at stake, and the idea that folks are spending more time finger-pointing than getting this solved is almost unbelievable,’’ said John Simon, a former US ambassador to the African Union who is now with the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank.

Nor is Haiti getting much from other donors. Some 50 other nations and organizations pledged a total of $8.75 billion for reconstruction, but just $686 million of that has reached Haiti so far — less than 15 percent of the total promised for 2010-11.

The lack of funds has all but halted reconstruction work by CHF International, the primary US-funded group assigned to remove rubble and build temporary shelters. Just 2 percent of rubble has been cleared and 13,000 temporary shelters have been built — less than 10 percent of the number planned.

The Maryland-based agency is asking the US government for $16.5 million to remove more than 21 million cubic feet of additional rubble and build 4,000 more temporary houses out of wood and metal.

“It’s just a matter of one phone call and the trucks are out again. We have contractors ready to continue removing rubble. . . . We have local suppliers and international suppliers ready to ship the amount of wood and construction materials we need,’’ said CHF country director Alberto Wilde. “It’s just a matter of money.’’

Last week the inaction bore tragic results. On Friday an isolated storm destroyed an estimated 8,000 tarps, tents, and shacks in the capital and killed at least six people, including two children. And the threat of violence looms as landowners threaten entire camps with forced eviction.

When the earthquake hit, US agencies sent troops, rescuers, aid workers, and supplies to the devastated capital, Port-au-Prince. On March 24, President Obama asked Congress for $2.8 billion in emergency aid to Haiti — about half to pay back money already spent by USAID, the Defense Department, and others. An additional $212 million was to write off debt. The heart of the request was $1.15 billion in new reconstruction funds.

A week later, Clinton touted that figure in front of representatives of 50 nations at the UN secretariat. “If the effort to rebuild is slow or insufficient, if it is marked by conflict, lack of coordination or lack of transparency, then the challenges that have plagued Haiti for years could erupt with regional and global consequences,’’ Clinton said.