More than 7 million gourdes (about US$87,500) are being allocated to non-existent parliamentary offices in Haiti. The revelation comes via a recent report by the Citizen’s Observatory for the Institutionalization of Democracy in Haiti (OCID). Photo: Internet Source

As part of its efforts to promote parliamentary transparency and better performance of the Haitian parliament, the OCID has just conducted a field survey to sketch a profile of recent parliamentary activities. A new report has revealed that overall, one-third of parliamentary offices could not be located and 21 percent are not operational.

OCID investigators, deployed from March 15 to 25, 2019, in the ten departments of the country and at 83 constituencies (out of a total of 116 currently represented in parliament), sought to identify 83 deputies’ offices and 29 senators’ offices.

Using a questionnaire developed for this purpose, investigators interviewed mayors, city delegates, known members of parliamentarians’ campaign teams, local representatives of political parties from parliamentarians and other active citizens of parliamentarians.

The analysis of the data collected for the 83 offices of deputies (71 percent of the 116 seats filled in the lower house) and the 29 offices of senators (or 100 percent of the 29 seats filled in the senate) revealed widespread irregularities, which are commonplace in Haiti.

The OCID report further revealed that 57 offices of deputies were found out of the 83 targeted (about 69 percent). Forty-five offices are operational (79 percent of the 57 offices identified). Investigators also focused on 29 senators’ offices, 19 were identified (approximately 65 percent), of which 15 are functional (79 percent of the 19 offices identified).

Investigators also discovered that 84 percent of MPs ‘operational offices operate during the five business days of the week, while the senators’ 15 operational offices operate five days out of five. Investigating 45 offices of the deputies revealed that 31 have a register of visitors against 12 out of 15 for senators’ offices.

The three categories of people who visit parliamentary offices the most are, in descending order, their supporters, members of community-based organisations and members of socio-professional groups.

Paradoxically, all the grievances cited by the respondents are usually about individual needs or projects (employment, scholarships, social assistance in various forms).

Each legislator collects about 210,000 gourdes (about US$2,625) monthly, while senators collect 250,000 thousand gourdes (about US$3,125), according to the report.