Following Friday's statements of President a.i. Jocelerme Privert on the financial situation of the country, he had described as "alarming and chaotic" https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16672-haiti-news-zapping-politics.html , Wilson Laleau, the Minister of Economy and Finance, has a reading and completely different figures on the country's situation. He believes that President Privert was misinformed and deplores the use of partial data and statements falsely alarmist.

Stressing that President a.i. Privert to justify his statements was based on the 1.8 billion of revenues collected dated 15th of the current month, which he says probably represents only a reentry source. He wished to clarify that at February 15, 2016, total revenue collected for the current month, were of the order of 3.3 billion gourdes for a forecast for the month of 6.8 billion. He recalled that since October 2015 (start of the new fiscal year 2015-2016) monthly revenues have varied between 5.7 and 6.2 billion gourdes [October 2015: 5.79 against 4.90 in 2014; November 2015: 4.78 against 4.12 in 2014; December 2015: 5.84 against 5.62 in 2014 and 6.28 in January 2016 against 4.99 in January 2015].

The Minister Laleau is convinced that monthly estimates would have been achieved if there were not for the many manifestations across the country and if the reforms proposed by the previous administration to increase the revenue of the State had not been suppressed, depriving the Treasury of nearly 15 billion gourdes. However, even in the absence of these two major factors he considers that the gap between revenue forecasts and entry of taxes and does not justify to be described as "alarmist".

PI/ HaitiLibre