As the year draws to a close, its time to take stock of what has been a tumultuous year for the country in general and the attempts to steer the course of the state into calm waters. This is the case with the national consensus for an inclusive transition and transparent elections, Consensus national pour une transition inclusive et des élections transparentes, which is commonly referred to as the December 21 Agreement, the day on which the agreement was reached a year ago, 2022. The agreement, endorsed by the interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the private business sector and civil society leaders, political parties and supported by the international community was concluded with a roadmap which expected among other things, establishing of various structures, elections this year and the potential for new officials taking office this coming February 7, 2024. At the first-year mark, the only achievement that can be pointed to is the ineffective high transitional council which was formed but which has yet to point to any meaningful effort on their part.  

The High Transition Council, created based on the December 21 agreement, was supposed to “contribute to defining the strategic orientations of public authorities through: creating political and social conditions for the return to constitutional order through free, credible, and transparent elections; promoting political dialogue for the participation of different actors in state management during the transition period; creating the necessary conditions for a return to a climate of security and peace and defining, monitoring, and evaluating responses to public policy emergencies.” However, this has not materialized. A new political formation known as the United Front for an effective and lasting end to the crisis, Front uni pour une sortie de crise efficace et durable, said that the whole agreement was a total failure, and this failure shows the incompetence of the signatories to the accord and the disappointment of the people. 

The president of the High Council for the Transition, Haut Conseil de la Transition (Hct), Mirlande Hippolyte Manigat, publicly recognized February 7, 2024, as the end date of the transition period led by de facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry but acknowledged that only the unity of the Haitian people can get the country out of the chaos. According to them, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) can always serve as a mediator in discussions, and the international community can always support Haiti, but only Haitians can find a durable and sustainable solution to the political and security crisis. Reconciliation and the national conference are two pillars that can put the country on the right track. Since 2021, the organization of elections to renew political leaders has been at an impasse, due to political disagreements and the worsening climate of terror, maintained, with complete impunity, by armed gangs in the country.

Meanwhile, the probe into the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse now takes a turn as government officials are now cleared to answer questions in the investigations. According to reliable sources, the council of ministers, has determined that those high-ranking government officials implicated in the assassination probe, must answer the prosecuting attorney’s call to give depositions at the court. The December 19, 2023, ruling stated that “all high-ranking state officials mentioned in the three orders of the investigating judge are authorized to testify. The Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers will notify the decision to the magistrate,” Though no specific dates have been chosen, Prime Minister Ariel Henry had been summoned to the examining magistrate’s office as a witness. The investigating judge, Walter Wesser Voltaire, who’s overseeing the dossier, had also summoned Michel Patrick Boisvert, Minister of Economy and Finance, and Ricard Pierre, Minister of Planning, also as witnesses. Other high ranking public officials who are to report to the judicial inquiry include Amos Zéphirin, Director General of the Ministry of the Interior and Territorial Communities; Guyteau Edouard, Director General of the National Directorate of Potable Water and Sanitation (DINEPA); Jeantel Joseph, Director of the National Agency of Protected Areas (ANAP), Other officials of interest are the former Director General of the national police (HNP), Léon Charles, who now serves as ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), as well as the Secretary-General of the Presidency, Josué Pierre Louis.

Finally, several municipalities in the North, including Cap-Haïtien, are currently affected by floods resulting from heavy rainfall over the past two days. Residents in the region have expressed concern about the severity of the situation, describing the events as “highly alarming.” The most affected municipalities include Cap-Haïtien, Plaine-du-Nord, Limonade, Quartier-Morin, and Acul-du-Nord, where the floods have caused significant damage. In Cap-Haïtien, residents are severely impacted due to the lack of maintenance of water drainage systems and other necessary infrastructure. Several neighborhoods, such as Blue-Hills, Bas de Vertières, Champin, Bas de Cité Chauvel, Cité du Peuple, and EPPLS, are currently submerged. In the downtown area, streets are inundated with muddy water and debris, significantly disrupting vehicular traffic. Canals and sewers are clogged with all kinds of waste causing water backups on roadways, a regular problem here that the authorities have always ignored. According to the deputy mayor of the city, Patrick Almonor, Cap-Haïtien has been suffering for over twenty years from the consequences of rural exodus and unplanned development. He acknowledges the need for responsible government entities to act to address this constant problem. According to Almonor, any action plan should consider measures to be implemented upstream and downstream, both in the city center and in the three rural sections, further promising that soon, a revised version of the municipal decree granting building and subdivision permits and establishing the obligation to maintain a clean environment will be published. 

The Toussaint Louveture international airport is getting a new radar system to upgrade the air traffic system, while more than a year after Fransisque mango exports to the US has been halted, the government and the national mango exporters association (ANEM) are in discussions with US officials to try an irradiation treatment to facilitate the resumption of these exports that bring in between US$10m to US$15m that benefits some half a million people involved at all levels of the sector.