PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — President Jovenel Moise on Monday announced Fritz-William Michel, an executive in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, as his fourth prime minister since he became head of state in 2017.
Michel replaces Jean Michel Lapin, who had earlier announced that he was stepping down in the interest of the country.
“I have made a choice for Haiti,” Lapin, the former culture and communications minister who was named to the post on March 21, three days after the Chamber of Deputies voted to oust the six-month-old government of then prime minister Jean-Henry Ceant.
In a Twitter posting on Monday night, Moise named the virtually unknown technocrat to head his Government, and is expected to formalise the position in an official decree later.
The new prime minister’s appointment followed talks on Sunday and Monday between Moise and the leaders of the two chambers of Parliament.
Lapin had become the third head of government under President Moise, who himself came to office in February 2017.
Media reports had earlier indicated that Moise had approached three people, including a woman, to replace Lapin, who had come to office less than a month after thousands of people took to the streets across the country demanding better living conditions and the departure of the president.
Moise faces an uphill task in getting his new nominee accepted by legislators who had used various strategies, including removing furniture from the Chamber and failing to report for work, in a bid to block a vote on Lapin’s nomination.
The Opposition parties here have accused Moise of embezzlement, but the head of state has defended himself against the report of the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Litigation (CSA/CA) into programmes and projects funded by the PetroCaribe, an oil alliance of many Caribbean states with Venezuela to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment.
The CSC/CA audit found that significant shortcomings have been associated with the planning and implementation of development programmes and projects funded by the PetroCaribe Fund during the administration of former president Michel Martelly.
The court made it clear that, overall, relevant documents were missing in most of the projects and contracts reviewed, and as a result it was impossible to conduct a comprehensive audit of several projects. Continue reading