The U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO) warned that delays and lack of monitoring of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), affected the efforts to rebuild Haiti after the earthquake of January 2010.

In a 55-page report, the GAO indicates that several issues such as land disputes and the increasing costs, have forced the federal agency to reduce its plans for housing construction in Haiti. The initial plan was to build 15,000 houses, but now the recalculation by USAID, represents a reduction of over 80%... so that only 2,649 homes will be built.

"Cost increases resulted from inaccurate original estimates that used inappropriate cost comparisons and from the Haitian government’s request for larger houses with improvements such as flush toilets," indicates the report, adding "USAID currently estimates construction will be completed almost 2 years later than initially scheduled. Delays oc curred due to the difficulties of securing land title s and coordination issues with partner donors."

Moreover, the same report concludes that the work of a new port in the north of Haiti, whose the completion was expected in 2015, have already two years later "Port construction will not begin until at least 2 years later than originally planned due in part to a lack of USAID expertise in port planning in Haiti."

SL/ HaitiLibre