It appears that our beloved President Jovenel Moise, is having trouble keeping his promesses lately. In his campaign, one of the promises was establishing a 24/7 electricity system.
"Ban'm Fe Nwa Mwen,
Ban'w Blakawout Mwen Souple"
"Give me the dark, Give me my Black-out Please"
Unfortunately, the Haitian Electricity company and it's partners are in no rush to help our leader to reach his goal.
This particular goal was to have this 24/7 service within the 24 months, after the president was elected, in Port-Au-Prince and the other major cities of the country. Haiti has always been a country with electricity problems, but ever since the riots last month, things have gotten more complicated and the company was obligated to ration the electricity...as if the service was not rationed enough.
Is it bad luck? or is President Moise, just like most politicians who just say what people want to hear to get elected? Why is it that the PRESIDENT of a country is not the one calling the shots about this? Does the company decide when and where to provide electricity?
Plus can we take a moment to talk about the fact that rapists are taking advantage of this black-out situation to go on rape sprees at night in the southern areas of the country?
I swear sometimes I hear sh*** about Haiti and this country just sounds like a horrible action film.
Source: Le Nouvelliste, Dieudonne Joachim.
I've had the opportunity to speak to Dimitri Vorbe and he was kind enough to enlighten me on the subject. Dimitri Vorbe is the vice-president of Sogener an electricity company and he represents some type of public figure to the Haitian community for several reasons.
I asked Mr. Vorbe the following questions and he answered them to the best of his abilities.
Being in the electricity business, can you tell me why it's so difficult to establish the service already?
24/7 electricity is a necessity for every country that wishes to be more developed, but it is
very expensive and it is required that the people using the service are able to pay for it. It is primarily a financial issue. To give you an idea, EDF (Electricity of France) made an evaluation of the matter and studies showed that Haiti would need around 1 billion US dollars in order to provide the 24/7 electricity service.
Based on what you think, why isn't the President making the decisions about when and where they can provide electricity?
In Haiti, only the president can decide what to do with the subject, but like I said, the funds are not always available, there is a big difference between wanting to do something and actually being able to do it.
Being in the position that you are now, can you influence the progress or evolution of this project?
The government has control over selling and distributing electricity in the country, only they can decide on the energy policy and the private sector that I represent can only respond to the demands of the government.
Would you like to give your opinion on the subject?
Even the Dominican Republic, our neighbors that are quite developed, doesn't have the 24/7 electricity service everywhere, it takes time and suitable strategies. Maybe one day, we will have access to this service, however it won't happen in one day. It will take lots of changes like the population getting decent jobs so they can afford the basic services such as education, health care, which is almost inexistant in the country and much more.
Let's say they are able to provide the service, it is obvious the more "needy" neighborhoods cannot afford to pay their bills regularly, does that mean these people won't have access?
When we will have 24/7 electricity, it will always be possible to find ways to accommodate those neighborhoods with options like zone rates, lots of countries do it and they can also provide prepaid electric meters.
After receiving Mr. Vorbe's answers I now understand that this matter is deeper than it looks. Many of us think that since it was promised we would get the service soon, the President should have everything established by now. As you can see, it's much more difficult than that, we can only hope that he is truly trying his best and that one day all the necessities a country has will be available in ours too. We have to stay patient.
I thank Mr. Vorbe for answering my questions so well, I thank you for taking the time to read this article.
The creole version of this article is now available :
https://soundcloud.com/myhaiti-myvision/banm-fe-nwa-mwen-banm-blakawout-mwen-souple
This was "Te'm Ba'w On Nouvel",
"Banm fe nwa mwen, banm blakawout mwen souple" edition, written by Tiff.
Comentários