Haitians worldwide, both in Haiti and throughout its international diaspora, have been demonstrating over the past two months to demand: “Where is the PetroCaribe money?”
They are referring to a fund established in Haiti a decade ago by Venezuela, in conjunction with the Haitian government, which was supposed to finance projects to benefit the Haitian people. A November 2017 Haitian Senate investigatory report found that some $1.7 billion from the PetroCaribe Fund was either lost, squandered, or embezzled from 2008 to 2016. Its management “was marked by serious anomalies, irregularities, acts of malfeasance and fabrication,” the report said. Today, analysts estimate that some $3.8 billion of PetroCaribe money is missing or misspent.
The fund’s establishment was a remarkable act of international solidarity initiated by the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and it was bitterly opposed by Washington. Under an accord signed in 2006 but not finalized and implemented until 2008, Venezuela agreed to provide Haiti with cheap petroleum products – some 20,000 barrels a day – when oil was selling for about $100 per barrel. Furthermore, Haiti only had to pay 60% of its oil bill to Venezuela up front. The remaining 40% of petroleum revenues went into the PetroCaribe Fund, repayable to Venezuela after 25 years at only 1% interest.
But what happened to this fund which could have provided so much development to the Haitian people? In short, it was largely stolen. It…