Haïti en Marche Editorial - Translation by HaitiAnalysis.com

The privatization of the Préval-Alexis government, it is, take it or Leave it! In fact, the power launches us into a privatization process, that just started up through an abundant firing of the employees of Téléco (the national company of telecommunications), without having said more to the nation than pieces of declarations at forceful press conferences with President Réne Préval or Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis.

So far, we rather saw the head of State rants against the plethora of employees in the public sector that he seems to consider as the principal handicap to its modernization (short of saying to the development of the country). That a true exposition, a budget ledger, a strict and honest report of performance or nonperformance on public or semi-autonomous enterprises, during the eras of the Duvalier's regime that saw their creation - exactly to protest the monopoly of the international private sector where blackout had become synonymous with Shrewsbery (the American who possessed the sole electric company in Haiti and only followed his own will) - to the interim system instituted after the brutal overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide, until at last gas at preferential rate Hugo Chavez's Venezuela came to bring a certain level of hope, not necessarily a solid hope.

As for the Prime Minister, nevertheless a great university personality, he is satisfied in this aspect in conveying the voice of his master, while the ministers of the Economy and Planning, who are supposed to be the orchestrators of such politics, remain silent.. .

Which privatization will eat us up?...

Which privatization is thus the essence? Or rather which privatization will eat us up, because there is privatization and privatization...

Not being any minister, economist, or planning entity, neither any Diafoirus to paraphrase Molière, we can only quote many examples known of all and showing that the term "privatization " covers a much wider, in short infinitely a lot more than what we are inflicted through major blows of always threatening declarations, and more or less interested press articles.

Roughly, there is at least total privatization, semi-privatization and partial privatization.

On this matter, where is the modernization commission of the public sector (but yes, the CMEP) of which it was the function, and that had done so much that it did end up to make us accept that a modernization is not privatization. More precisely, that modernization is a form of privatization without its name.

Except that this bet on modernization, at any rate in our country, was won by foreign firms, that are Haitel, Comcel and Digicel. For the best interest of the clientele, so we notice.

Except also that meanwhile, the Haitian State lost the whole file that had been built so carefully, and so costly, by the CMEP, in some bottom drawer. Today one has chosen a much simpler procedure; it is the take it or leave it! In Creole, "sa k pa kontan anbake".

National Security...

President Préval and those whom it is indeed necessary to call our propagandists of the moment, give for example the cases of the Minoterie and Haiti Ciment, two factories that were created by the Duvalier regime, and that were sold to the private sector under the first presidential mandate of Mr. Préval (1996-2001).

It is a matter of two production businesses of consumers’ goods (flour and cement) that can be obtained easily and anywhere. But that we could not in anyway compare with strategic institutions, therefore of national interest and that even turned out - since the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States - a matter of national security, like the main harbor of the capital better known under the name of APN (National Harbor Administration).

There are other harbors in Haiti, public as well as private harbors, but there is only one Port-au-Prince Harbor. Just as the harbor of Santo Domingo only belongs to the Dominican Republic.

Take the cash and get on!...

We are not saying that the APN, or the National Airport Administration, or the Téléco should not be privatized. But following which criteria, which interests - because the public interest, in all those cases should not be neglected and should even win over the criterion of basic profitability, in terms of dividends and dollars. And that it cannot be a simple matter of big bucks. Take the cash and get on!

A good example of semi-privatization is the one of the radio television in France during the Mitterrand regime. The old ORTF had broken down into multiples chains (FR3, TF1, Canal, etc.), profiting as much from private funds as from new technologies, but its culture did not disappear, as in the United States, under the weight of brands of laundry soap and lame videos.

No one ever talked about privatizing the airport of Miami. This airport is a public wealth, duly belonging to the county, in this case Dade County, but it is obvious that the management of the airport is, as long as it can be remembered, given to one or several private firms. Different firms taking care of its different departments (administration, security, janitorial, etc.).

But notice, the contracts of these firms are reconsidered each year, evidently according to their performance but more so according to the necessities of defined moments by virtue of the public interest.

And it is locally elected officials (we insist, local) who proceed to this evaluation (local elected officials that are evaluated by the administrators during regular elections).

Subjected to the sole laws of the market...

We were hit by another example, the one of the water in Bordeaux. Traveling with a Haitian mixed delegation of the public sector - private sector, we visited Bordeaux (France), what we could call a major general water headquarters. Water in the heart of the 21st century. Two principles: 1) water is a resource in the process of disappearance; 2) water is an essential human right. Any man, whatever his wealth, his nationality or his race has right to the quantity of water that is necessary to him.

We cannot therefore leave such a public wealth at the hands of the sole laws of the market.

Nevertheless, the water in Bordeaux (a city that claims to have one of the better waters in the world) is privatized. But in the same way the government Préval of 1996-2001 talked about modernization. Because the Bordeaux Town Council cannot afford the luxury to finance alone all the necessary technological innovations

The found solution is the following: 1) Natural resource is a public wealth. 2) Management is private (administration, research, including all the possible and imaginable means to conserve water). 3) But a mixed commission headed by personalities belonging to the civil corporation sets up the rates.

Return to Shrewsbery?...

There is therefore privatization and privatization. First of all businesses are not the same. Up to the fact that the Ciment and the Haiti Minoterie never should have been to State businesses to begin with. On the other hand it would be too bad that a wild privatization (we insist, wild) of the EDH, the Teleco, up to the APN would make us return to the Shrewsbery's earlier times... It would, then, not be a matter of privatization but of an attempt at liquidation of the national economy.

On the other hand, privatization is not synonymous with the private sector, as we tend to believe, therefore often putting the latter in a bad position despite itself. In any case, the Haitian private sector does not have the means of this massive privatization such as the one announced by the side of power.

Is this therefore a return to Shrewsbery?