
The past 4 years of President Martelly’s regime will be remembered for decades to come and for all the wrong reasons.
Ever since the singer and keyboardist was elected to rule, Haiti has slid into a bigger recession, crime, violence and corruption. The country is in chaos. At no single time in Haiti’s history things were so bad.
When the President is not in the news, his family, wife or son are – everyone in the family gets to do whatever they want.
Money has been disappearing at a rapid pace. The universal sentiment in Haiti about President Martelly- is that he and his family have completely robbed Haiti of every penny. Billions of dollars were donated to rebuild Haiti after the earthquake and very little of this money can be accounted for. Martelly thinks that there has been great progress but most people think he is delusional.
Every single day for the past year there has been demonstrations calling for Martelly’s resignation by people who have had enough.

President Martelly, first lady Sophia and the president’s son, Olivier
The Haitian Court of Justice ordered an investigation into the president’s son, Olivier and the first lady, Sophia’s corruption. The two have been accused of money laundering, abuse of authority and wasting public money. While the two have denied these allegations, the evidence is overwhelming.
Most of the money donated to rebuild Haiti has been squandered on a “Pay and Play” scheme initiated by Martelly. The question to be asked is why the First Lady is managing public funds when she is not even an elected politician?
Haiti ranks at the bottom when it comes to transparency. No one seems to know what is happening in the government. It has always been a tradition in Haitian politics to hide information from the public but the Martelly government has taken things a lot further. Martelly and his supporters keep on claiming that he is the cleanest president on record and yet on the other hand they never divulge any data to counter the accusations. They won’t release a single piece of document regarding their finances or their bank accounts. Surely if they had nothing to hide, why would they not release their bank statements? There are countless reports of exorbitant gifts that have been given to the president, costing millions of dollars- all courtesy of tax-payers’ money. The bank governor has bought many cars for the president and his family and one wonders why. Who authorized the purchase and gifting of cars and why?
Even though Haiti has an anti-corruption unit, the agency has been hampered by threats, bullying and delays in taking the cases to court. It appears that everyone seems to work for the president and has prevented cases from going forward. There is complete lack of governance. Reports indicate that he and his family own countless real estate not only in Haiti but also abroad. Hopefully the upcoming election will give Haiti a fresh start.
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