people are stranger

Even though I posted this RFP, I have serious problems with road rehabilitation.

For starters, there is nary a road law in the country, which means that better roads means faster drivers, more accidents, more dead, more, more, more. Do I really believe that better roads will reduce maintenece costs and that savings will be passed along to the consumer via lower fares? No, not really.

Better roads will also facilitate the transportation of products, which may cheapen them, which is good. But what about the oh-so-slight remaining forests of the South? Most would agree, I am sure, that their existence is due to the inaccessibility of the South to the bustling capital. Building better roads would mean greater access to charcoal markets. Do we really want to wait and see if they in fact do? Well I don’t. Call it a hunch.

Matt made the great recommendation some months back (http://www.haitiinnovation.org/node/422/) that the Préval Administration should subsidize propane. They should also ban the sale of bulk charcoal, and they should have done it yesterday. But it hasn’t happened and I am not so sure it would ever happen. Perhaps entry into PetroCaribe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocaribe) will change that…

One thing that I have long said, and still believe, is that Haiti should reinstitute the rail system (http://www.haitiinnovation.org/node/365/) see my blog post from Feb. 12, 2006. Surly it would be hard for a few truck drivers and charcoal dealers, but given the choice of a healthy charcoal market, good roads, floods, mud slides, and erosion versus a rail system, healthy hillsides, and subsidized propane, who could argue?

Robert Miller, Director
Haiti Innovation, Inc.