Letter from NGOs to Secretary Blinken to Assist Haitian Government in Fighting Corruption
May 4, 2021
Dear Mr. Secretary,
Recent violent protests in Port-au-Prince underscore the Haitian people’s acute frustration with weak democratic governance, systemic corruption and the severe poverty that results from the avarice of government officials. The most glaring example of this malfeasance was seen in the PetroCaribe scandal in which an estimated $2 billion was misappropriated. Indeed, in Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perception Index, Haiti scored just 18 out of a possible 100, making it one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Given the Biden administration’s stated foreign policy goal of addressing the “Achilles’ heel” of corruption around the globe, an array of anti- corruption, transparency and human rights organizations believe the United States must assist the Haitian government in developing critically important anti-corruption measure