Haiti - Reconstruction : It will take years to rebuild the capital...
Nearly a year after the earthquake of January 2010, Jacques Gabriel, Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communications (TPTC), made a gloomy assessment of the perspectives of reconstruction "We did an assessment of the damages caused by the earthquake and we working on a plan for rebuilding the downtown of Port-au-Prince [entrusted to the Foundation of Prince Charles]", said the minister "The task will be very heavy, and not only in the city, but also in the provinces that were affected by the earthquake". "The task will be very heavy, and not only in the city, but also in the provinces that were affected by the earthquake. " Some 390,500 buildings destroyed or damaged were evaluated, of this total, less than a thousand have been repaired and almost 10 million m3 of debris remain to be cleared,
what hampering the process of rebuilding.
"It is difficult to give a delay, two, three, five years..." clarifying "that the reconstruction on this scale can not simply be done quickly [...] even the government's rehousing is not imminent, the state must be able to finance the construction of administrative complex over the next five years."
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who co-chairs the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC) has already ruled in the past the slow progress of the reconstruction "totally unacceptable", while Oxfam said for its part that "the indecision" of the authorities was to blame for the lack of progress.
To defend themselves against generalized charges concerning the slownesses of the government, the Minister of Public Works stated that "Before rebuilding, you should conduct studies to have a comprehensive approach in order to know how to rebuild, what to rebuild, under what conditions and how, while taking into account the seismic hazard [...] We must also educate people, train technicians and build differently to avoid further disasters", all this takes time... long time...
