According to renowned economist Kesner Pharel, a war budget exists, but it remains undisbursed, causing a stagnation in the so-called anti-gang campaign.

The war budget, a response to the current security crisis, was intended to allocate more resources to security institutions, including the Haitian National Police and the armed forces.

Despite this budgetary effort, a large portion of the funds remains unused.

Between $26 and $29 million are in the vault, unused, Pharel said, as quoted by the newspaper Le Nouvelliste.

This is due to a lack of capacity to execute these amounts. “We could put the entire budget in the hands of these two institutions, and it wouldn’t change anything if they couldn’t execute it,” Kesner Pharel says.

The essence of this problem isn’t money, but the inability to spend it effectively. Making a budget is one thing—it’s a forecast—but executing it is quite another, Pharel argued.

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