Wash­ing­ton Post Staff Writer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/10/AR2010031001901.html

Hait­ian Pres­i­dent René Pré­val pleaded Wednes­day for U.S. help plug­ging a multimillion-dollar bud­get gap caused by the Jan. 12 earth­quake but said he got a cool recep­tion from con­gres­sional lead­ers wary of hand­ing over cash.

Pré­val, who arrived in Wash­ing­ton on Mon­day night, said that his government’s rev­enue plunged 80 per­cent after the earth­quake and that the losses would blast a $350 mil­lion hole in Haiti’s bud­get this year.

“We are fac­ing some urgency now. We are 1 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in the street,” Pré­val told reporters and edi­tors at The Wash­ing­ton Post.

The earth­quake was the worst nat­ural dis­as­ter in the West­ern Hemi­sphere in decades, killing more than 230,000 peo­ple and destroy­ing much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s cap­i­tal and home to one-third of the country’s 9 mil­lion peo­ple. The U.S. gov­ern­ment has pledged more than $700 mil­lion in dis­as­ter aid, part of a flood of inter­na­tional assistance.

Pré­val said lit­tle of that money has gone to his gov­ern­ment. For years, the United States and many other donors have pre­ferred to chan­nel funds through the United Nations and other non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions, cit­ing con­cerns about cor­rup­tion and bureau­cratic dysfunction.

Pré­val was in Wash­ing­ton to brief the Obama admin­is­tra­tion on the relief oper­a­tion and Haiti’s needs. U.S. offi­cials have been anx­ious to hear about his plans ahead of an inter­na­tional donors’ con­fer­ence on March 31 that could be piv­otal in launch­ing the recon­struc­tion of the impov­er­ished nation. Con­gres­sional offi­cials say they expect the White House to request up to $3 bil­lion in a spe­cial pack­age for Haiti’s rebuilding.

Pré­val appeared more focused Wednes­day on short-term prob­lems — pro­vid­ing shel­ter for those liv­ing in the ruins as Haiti’s rainy sea­son approaches, and get­ting seed to farm­ers in time for spring planting.

“Our pri­or­i­ties are, first and fore­most, … pro­tec­tion of those peo­ple who today are home­less and who must be relo­cated,” Pré­val said after meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Obama at the White House. “And in par­al­lel, we must pre­pare for the rainy season.”

Pré­val iden­ti­fied two pri­or­i­ties for the broader task of rebuild­ing Haiti: encour­ag­ing peo­ple to move from the over­crowded cap­i­tal by pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tion, health care and jobs in the provinces; and set­ting up a donors’ trust fund to be over­seen by an agency that would track the spending.

Scores of Hait­ian offi­cials and inter­na­tional devel­op­ment experts have been ham­mer­ing out an assess­ment of Haiti’s post-earthquake needs, expected in the next few days. But sev­eral U.S. offi­cials said they had seen few specifics about the government’s ideas.

Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton, said in an inter­view this week that the U.S. gov­ern­ment would look at the Hait­ian plan and pick sev­eral areas on which to con­cen­trate, prob­a­bly includ­ing agri­cul­ture, health, secu­rity and energy.

“In coor­di­na­tion with the gov­ern­ment of Haiti and the donor com­mu­nity, we want to be able to focus our invest­ments where we can have great­est impact,” said Mills, who is Clinton’s point per­son on Haiti.

Pré­val told The Post that U.S. leg­is­la­tors appeared reluc­tant to release funds to his gov­ern­ment. “It is not in the habit of the U.S. Con­gress to give direct finan­cial aid to other coun­tries’ bud­gets,” he said.

“We must find a for­mula” to fill the gap, he said, such as U.S. sup­port for a project rather than cash. Obama, he said, “under­stood very well. He’s going to sup­port us.”

In a Rose Gar­den cer­e­mony with Pré­val, Obama appeared sym­pa­thetic to the Hait­ian leader’s con­cerns about the impend­ing rainy sea­son. “The chal­lenge now is to pre­vent a sec­ond dis­as­ter,” Obama said.

But a spokesman for the National Secu­rity Coun­cil, Ben Chang, declined to say whether the pres­i­dent sup­ported pro­vid­ing cash to Haiti’s gov­ern­ment. He said only that U.S. author­i­ties have made it clear that “together with the rest of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, we are com­mit­ted to work­ing to help Haiti address both its short-term and long-term needs.”

Pré­val has repeat­edly com­plained to U.S. offi­cials about earth­quake assis­tance bypass­ing his office. A recent staff report by the Sen­ate For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee said his frus­tra­tion was “valid.” How­ever, the report added, “it is not rea­son­able for him to define the solu­tion to each prob­lem as being resolved with just money. The GOH [gov­ern­ment of Haiti] does not have any­thing approx­i­mat­ing the capac­ity to address the prob­lems and run the pro­grams to address them.”

In his visit to The Post, Pré­val empha­sized that he has taken mea­sures to reduce the waste and fraud asso­ci­ated with past Hait­ian gov­ern­ments. His aides noted that progress on rein­ing in cor­rup­tion was one fac­tor in the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund’s deci­sion last year to for­give $1.2 bil­lion of Haiti’s debt.