Haiti’s pledges may remain unfulfilled

Al Redlhammer of Seariders said that his company was approached with a view to looking at moving a number of mobile housing units into Haiti, since there are still people sleeping in tents – even with the hurricane season upon the area.

“The port has essentially been destroyed, but there’s little sign of any significant movement to change this,” said Mr Redlhammer. “We did some initial investigation as to how exactly to ship these units, but although we can load them onto the ship at origin and get them across, there’s no suitable infrastructure at present to get them off again at the other end.”

He added that it has been complicated by the Haitian law which does not allow a private party to establish a port. Although a shipping line which has tied a couple of barges together to form a makeshift landing stage, there are no facilities to bring in large-scale relief.

However, it is not just the hardware that needs attention. Mr Redlhammer went on to say that corruption has a historical existence in the port, which is complicating the picture. “Further, some aid hasn’t been able to get through because the ports have tried to collect duties on charity goods coming in: for example, an ambulance that had been donated to help relief efforts was tied up by attempts to collect $68,000 duty.”

“Although millions have been promised to Haiti, unless some kind of responsible intermediary party is established to receive and disburse the funds, I don’t see these pledges being fulfilled,” he said.