Nine months after the earthquake, more than a million Haitians live on the streets between piles of rubble because the government is yet to receive the $1.15 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding.
The financial aid was pledged by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton in March for use this year in rebuilding. The U.S. has already spent more than $1.1 billion on post-earthquake relief, but without long-term funds, the reconstruction of the devastated capital cannot start.
With just a week to go before the fiscal 2010 ends, the money is still hold up in Washington.
Bureaucracy, disorganization and a lack of urgency is being blamed for the financial aid not reaching the impoverished country.
One senator has held up a key authorization bill because of a $5 million provision he said will be wasteful.
Meanwhile, a sudden, powerful storm that recently ripped though Haiti’s battered capital Port-au-Prince destroyed thousands of tents in the homeless camps where more than 1.3 million people live since the January earthquake.
The death toll from the storm stood at six people, with nearly 8,000 tents damaged or destroyed, according to a statement from the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration.
Reconstruction has barely begun despite billions of dollars pledged for Haiti in the wake of the disaster. Less than 15 percent of money promised at the UN donor’s conference in March has been delivered.
©2010 Community Newspaper Group
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