Présidentiel

Martelly Wants an Emergency Law

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) - Giving himself a 9 out of 10 for his first year as president, Michel Martelly believes he would have done better if he had enjoyed emergency legislation, which his new executive team is working to get passed in parliament.

Martelly believes that the country is still in a state of emergency. According to Le Nouvelliste, the President said, "you do not need to have an emergency law passed like that after the earthquake. We have many emergencies. This was discussed at our team meeting. Although it is said that the international community will not accept it. It has already agreed once. We are not obliged to have an emergency law that allows us to create disorder, but there may be an emergency law that allows us to move quickly..."

As an example, President Martelly talked about six months which have passed since he sent an order to buy new instruments for the National Palace band.

"If I were a civilian, I could in twenty-four hours buy these instruments and return home with them. These are procedures that must change," Martelly said.

Martelly believes that the contracts that were signed by former Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive during the Emergency Law had their advantages. Martelly said the contracts allowed procurement without allocating funds to projects that, previously, were not necessarily in the clauses.

"The advantage offered by these contracts, if I want to build a road which costs 100 million gourdes, I can go in and change a proposed contract for the construction of this road. Without competitive bidding. But now if I want to build a road, it must pass through the procurement. To begin in 2014," said the Head of State.

President Martelly said that "the Haitian government has signed contracts, they say for more than five hundred million dollars. The first advantage I have is it has not spent a dollar..."

This claim is questionable as it was reported that upto 60% of the contracts had already been awarded to the questionable companies.

Martelly continued. "Whoever started the business contract corruption wanted sully the image of President Martelly. While it is the president Martelly who gave permission to conduct the investigation..."

This claim is also questionable as records show that Martelly was against the conducting of the investigation which played a role in the resignation of the former Prime Minister Garry Conille who spearheaded the audit.

"There are only 44 million that were released as part of these contracts Martelly told Le Nouvelliste. These funds are allocated to build houses. He said they wanted to create a crisis with the issue of contract audit ... "I am very, very happy with my balance" "I will deal first with free education on how I conducted my campaign . Having now documents proving that one million children go to school for free, it gives me great pleasure," said President Martelly who is awaited on by many members of the press and public to share this proof that 1 million students are attending school under his program of free education.

The president stressed that much remains to be done, like building schools, raising the standard of education in the country. But before we get there, the head of state believes that his vision is being applied in respect to access to education. However, he acknowledged that there were still errors.

"Error? I am the first one who has ever done this, there are schools in the program who received nothing, there are also teachers who have received nothing. Good news: their money is available. The problem is the slowness of procedures," he said Martelly apologetically who's administration still has not brought the National Fund for Education through the Parliament and under a legal framework.