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Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant resigned Saturday after the violence triggered by a fuel adjustment that was canceled, and now the beleaguered country government must find a strategy to comply "Before coming here (in parliament), I submitted my resignation" to President Jovenel Moses, who "accepted it," Lafontant told Congress.
Accompanied by all his ministers, Lafontant made an announcement before an appeal for lawmakers who demanded his departure from power.
The former prime minister had refused to resign until now and he had tweeted on Friday: "People of Haiti! History in Parliament on Saturday, July 14, to respond to Opposition deputies and talk about the achievements of the government. "
Lafontant's resignation only partially mitigates the strong political and social tension after the wave of violence between July 6 and July 8, after the government announced a sharp rise in the price of fuel – 38% gasoline, 47% diesel and 51% kerosene –
Puerto Prince, the capital, and other cities of the poor countries mounted Roadblocks and dozens of shops were looted and burned, and at least four people died during the riots.
Saturday, the 7th, a day after the announcement of the adjustment, the Government canceled the measures.
But in the absence of a political response to violence, several sectors of Haitian society demanded the resignation of Lafontant, a physician by profession without political experience and friend of President Moses who had been appointed in February 2017.
Several hundred Haitians marched this Saturday not only to demand the resignation of Lafontant, but also that of the president.
"It is not only a matter of going to the first Minister, because every day people suffer from more misery, unemployment, insecurity, hunger," he said. Pierre Fleurette, a protester
– Difficult task –
Haiti is in poverty: about 60% of the population lives on less than $ 2 a day and is very sensitive to any price increase.
In February, Haiti signed an agreement with the International Monetary Fund in which it committed to undertake economic and structural reforms to promote growth.
One of the conditions is the elimination of subsidies to petroleum products, which led to announce the adjustment that generated the wave of violence.
The agreement with the Fund also urges the government to maintain inflation below 10%.
Since 2015, inflation has increased by 14% annually. The draft budget sent to the Parliament in late June provides for 13.6% by the end of the year.
Thursday, after the violence generated by the announcement of the increase in fuels, the IMF suggested that the Haitian government eliminates the "We will continue to support Haiti and help (…) the authorities in the development of a revised strategy "that would include" a much more progressive approach to eliminating subsidies, "said Gerry Rice, spokesman.
Rice recalled that the elimination of fuel subsidies should allow the government to release funds to finance social measures.
The Haitian government will have a hard time finding a strategy that will enable it to achieve the goals agreed with the IMF and the decision to reverse the increase in fuels requires it to find a other way to get the 300 million That would have been the case
This figure represents 11% of the 2018-2019 budget presented to Parliament in June
and the Moses government must find a way to appease everything the world: angry consumers, politicians with varied interests and IMF economists
The enormous social inequality that prevails in Haiti is often the motive of those who protest against the government.
More than 200 years after its independence from France, Haiti holds, according to the World Bank, some of the most unequal societies in the world.
© 2018 AFP
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