ARTICLE - MINISTER & PARLIAMENT NOT HAPPY

MINISTER AND PARLIAMENTARIANS XPRESS DISCONTENT WITH ETHICS INVESTIGATION
(Defend Haiti) -

PORT-AU-PRINCE - An investigation into the mismanagement of funds that has implicated the Minister of the Interior and Territorial Cooperation, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime and nearly two dozen former and current parliamentarians is not being well received in the National Assembly.

The discontent was expressed at its height on Tuesday in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and has focused its wrath at the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor of Port-au-Prince, Jean-Francois Sonel who has summoned the concerned to his office for questioning.

"This is a minister in office. He did not respond to the convening of a government commissioner without the approval of the Head of State," Smith Romual said visibly irritated, reported by Radio Kiskeya. Minister Bien-Aime expressed the wish that "the office of the Minister is not trivialized and ministers treated rudely."

Commissioner Jean-François Sonel, interviewed Bien-Aime as part of an alleged affair of fictitious jobs. 11 deputies and 10 former deputies and a senator were named in a National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) report that saw many of these politicians receiving payments of 100,000 HTG per month for consulting for the ministry.

Outraged by the decision of the government commissioner to question a minister in office, Senator Simon Dieuseul Desrais also launched a warning to his colleagues in the Lower House telling them not to cooperate. "If an MP answers a convocation to the Government Commissioner there goes his responsibility and he may not claim no form in the solidarity of Parliament" warned the Senator from the Centre Department.

"The government commissioner," said Desrais, "is swimming in the wrong order convening Parliament if he wants to get pieces of information. The Commissioner of the Government reports to Parliament." Desrais also announced the postponement of a Wednesday convening of the Minister of Justice, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, and the Justice and Security Committee of the Senate.

In an informal meeting with the chairman of the Senate Justice and Security Committee, Prime Minister Bellerive had requested the postponement of the meeting. The prime minister later said he would not show and the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Sorel Jacinthe, agreed to accompany Minister Bien-Aimé to the interrogation by the Commissioner in Port au Prince.

The two felt the commissioner's invitation was justified following the publication of the RNDDH report.