{"id":4694,"date":"2020-03-04T06:11:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T11:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=4694"},"modified":"2020-03-04T06:11:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T11:11:16","slug":"a-new-prime-minister-by-a-presidential-tweet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/?p=4694","title":{"rendered":"A new Prime Minister by a Presidential tweet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>A ne<span style=\"color: #000000;\">w Prime Minister by a Presidential tweet<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>HAPPENINGS\u00a0! <\/strong><em>By RAJ<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">President Jovenel Mo\u00efse started the week by tweeting on Monday (March 2nd) the name of a new Prime Minister, after a full year with an interim one at the helms, while being doubled by another interim, nominated last July, but who was in limbo ever since. The newly nominated Prime Minister is Jouthe Joseph, who was an interim Minister of Finance and Economy since September 2019. That post was cumulative because he had been Minister of Environment in the interim cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Michel Lapin, named in March 2019 to the post, after Jean-Henry C\u00e9ant was toppled from the premiership by President Mo\u00efse in cahoots with the Lower Chamber of Parliament. In his tweet, President Mo\u00efse said: \u201cAfter much consulting with different sectors in the country, I have chosen citizen Joute Joseph as the new Prime Minister. He\u2019s called upon to quickly set up a broad government of consensus that will be able to meet the urgent needs we face.\u201d To be noted, the president spells Joute for Jouthe. Isit an error or is he changing the first name of his Prime Minister designate?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It should be noted that this Prime Minister won\u2019t have the approval of Parliament since the Lower House\u2019s mandate expired on January 13 and the President arbitrarily dismissed nine senators, robbing them of two years of their mandate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The social networks are rife with questions about this Joute\/Jouthe Joseph. Most say he\u2019s a new comer. But he was Minister of the Environment in the interim cabinet of Prime Minister Lapin. Moreover, on September 30, 2019, he was also named Minister of the Economy and Finance, one of the most important ministries. Apparently, President Mo\u00efse had been grooming him for the Prime Minister post. In December 2018, he had \u201cjoined a delegation\u201d that went to Poland to attend a conference on the environment. Then, it was said that \u201che will participate in the event [December 3 to 14] at several high-level meetings.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A year later, on December 7, 2019, he was headed to Madrid, Spain, \u201cto join the Haitian delegation taking part in the 25th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) to the Framework Convention [of the] United Nations Climate Change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Both times, Joute\/Jouthe Joseph was not leading the delegations, just \u201cjoining\u201d them and showing him meeting top international personalities. In that way, when he\u2019s finally named to head the government, he would not be a complete unknown to international partners. But what has Mr. Joseph really accomplished as Minister either of Environment or of Economy and Finance?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Just last month, on February 10, Le Nouvelliste, the Port-au-Prince daily, reported that Mr. Joseph said \u201cfor the past three months he had not given a gourde to Electricit\u00e9 d\u2019Ha\u00efti (EDH),\u201d the State\u2019s electricity provider. He further said that EDH could seek loans from such institutions as the National Bank of Credit which, by the way, is tied to the government. The action taken by the Finance Minister against EDH probably is aimed at showing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that he\u2019s the man to deal with in cutting subsidies to various programs, even for fuel subsidies, something that the IMF has been calling for before it will advance loans to the financially-strapped government. So Joute\/Jouthe Joseph may be IMF\u2019s Man in Haiti. Hopefully, they will remember that when exorbitant fuel hikes were announced by the government in July 2018, violent demonstrations caused the fall of Jovenel\u2019s first Prime Minister, Jacques Lafontant. Since then the country has been in turmoil.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Interestingly, Fritz William Michel, who was in limbo as Prime Minister designate since July of last year, wrote a letter to President Mo\u00efse to offer his resignation. Dated February 28, the letter, appearing on the social networks, states among other things that he was \u201chonored\u201d to have been chosen, the \u201chumble person\u201d that he is, to lead the government. He also thanks the members of the Lower House of Parliament that had approved his program of government. Unfortunately, the Senate was impeded in giving its approval, as constitutionally required.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Mr. Williams said in his letter, \u201cConvinced, Your Excellency, that there\u2019s a necessity to develop new political dynamics for our dear country, I present my resignation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fritz Michel will be remembered for the man who charged the government $325 a head for 20,000 goats said to be an \u201cenhanced brand\u201d for a program aimed at a bettering the goat population for Haiti\u2019s peasantry. At that time that kind of a goat fetched $100 on the free market. He will also be remembered for his extravagances soon after he was nominated Prime Minister. He took a wing of rooms at the upscale Karibe Hotel in P\u00e9tion-Ville where his mistresses stayed in proximity. He also had a 24-hour security detail as soon as he was named Prime Minister. Eventually, the management at Karibe asked him to leave, for fear of demonstrators who began to threaten harm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Fritz Michel, master corrupter, reportedly had bribed five senators, giving each $100,000, to obtain their vote. But they never got to vote, because the Senate was thwarted by the opposition in holding any meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">For how long did the government keep Fritz William Michel on the payroll and benefitting of the amenities of the post? He was hanging on for the past eight months as Prime Minister designate. What has been the cost to the State for having an interim PM in the person of Jean-Michel Lapin and a second PM in waiting in the person of Fritz William? For such corruption, the people have been asking President Mo\u00efse to resign. Will he be able to pacify the opposition with his new Prime Minister? <em>Stay tuned.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Cet article est publi\u00e9 en collaboration sp\u00e9ciale avec R\u00e9seau HEM Geneva, et l\u2019hebdomadaire Ha\u00efti-Observateur, \u00e9dition du 4 mars 2020\u00a0<strong>VOL. L, No.8\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>New York, et se trouve en\u00a0<strong>P. 1, 7<\/strong>\u00a0\u00e0 : <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/H-O-4-March-2020-1.pdf\">http:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/H-O-4-March-2020-1.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new Prime Minister by a Presidential tweet HAPPENINGS\u00a0! By RAJ President Jovenel Mo\u00efse started the week by tweeting on Monday (March 2nd) the name of a new Prime Minister, after a full year with an interim one at the&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,25,40,43],"tags":[1495,1509,1617,1747,2136,2460,2563,2748,2905],"class_list":["post-4694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglais","category-haiti","category-politique","category-raj","tag-haiti-observateur","tag-happenings","tag-imf","tag-jouthe","tag-michel","tag-payroll","tag-pm","tag-resign","tag-senat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haiti-observateur.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}