Political Quotes

“I would like to thank my good friend, the chairperson of the Congressional Black Caucus and a friend of Haiti's who has been working on behalf of Haiti for many years, Barbara Lee. I rise to support this resolution, which expresses the condolences of the House of Representatives with the people of Haiti following last week's devastating earthquake. I especially appreciate the fact that this resolution urges multilateral financial institutions to immediately suspend further debt payment from Haiti and to develop processes to cancel all of Haiti's remaining debt. Haiti cannot begin to recover from the earthquake while continuing to make payments on debts owed to multilateral financial institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Even before the earthquake occurred, debt payments were a tremendous burden that interfered with the ability of Haiti's Government to meet the needs of its people. Haiti worked very hard over the past several years to qualify for debt relief. In order to qualify, the Government of Haiti successfully developed and implemented a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper under the direction of the IMF and the World Bank. As a result, multilateral financial institutions provided Haiti $1.2 billion in debt relief last June. Nevertheless, Haiti still owes a total of $664 million in debt to multilateral financial institutions. The IMF offered Haiti a new $100 million loan for earthquake recovery efforts.…”