Business

Haitian Street Traders Mad at New Central Bank Measures

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (defend.ht) – The street traders are furious about a possible measure of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti (BRH) to not to allow remittances in dollars but to be received in gourdes and efforts to make electronic payments the norm.

The Finance Minister and the Governor of the Central Bank are invited to the Senate on this issue.

The possibility that the BRH prohibits financial institutions to pay in dollar remittances from abroad scares to death the street traders in Haiti. They consider that measure as something that can only send them out of work; their main customers receiving transfers from abroad in dollar.

Friday, the governor of the central bank, Charles Castel, had indicated that, in response to the scarcity of the dollar in cash, which the market is facing, it is possible that from January, commercial banks and transfer houses are no longer allowed to recover the amounts in USD dollars sent out by Haitians living abroad to their relatives in the country.

Mr. Castel had estimated that these amounts were to be spent in gourds (Haitian currency), so as to make the payment in local currency to the beneficiaries.

Street traders said it is probably a measure to promote rich people to their detriment. The worst thing they said is that this action may be taken without consulting them.

They call those responsible to find elsewhere the source of the scarcity of the dollar, because ages ago that people receive remittances in dollars from abroad, that's the first time that the scarcity of the dollar reached such a dimension, street traders reason.

This is to account for this "new situation" that the Minister of Economy and Finance and Mr. Castel are invited Tuesday by the Economic and Finance of the Senate.