Who Paid for Montreal Mansion? Senator or People?
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DrudgeReportFeed/~3/paz4SPMoJBM/  MONTREAL  He is one of the few lawmakers left in Haiti, a close ally of the assassinated president who has kept his seat while the countrys democratic institutions have been whittled away. As one of only 10 remaining members in all of Haitis Parliament, Rony Clestin, a swaggering figure who styles himself as a self-made multimillionaire, belongs to a tiny circle of leaders with the legal authority to steer the nation out of crisis now that the president is dead. But to many Haitians, Mr. Clestin is also a symbol of one of their biggest grievances: a ruling class that enriches itself while so many go hungry. In recent months, as the country erupted in protest over abuse of power by the political elite, Mr. Clestin has been parrying accusations of corruption from Haitian activists over his purchase of a mansion almost 2,000 miles away in Canada. The sprawling $3.4 million villa, with its sweeping driveway, home cinema, wine cellar and swimming pool overlooking a lake, was among the most expensive homes ever sold in one of Quebecs most affluent neighborhoods, and the purchase set off a corruption investigation into Mr. Clestin by officials in Haiti. The villa has become emblematic of the chasm between the gilded lifestyles of Haitis elite and the majority of the population, who on average earn less than $2.41 a day. Mr. Clestins ownership has incited outrage over capital flight  legal and illicit  that drains money from Haiti and weakens the countrys institutions. Mr. Clestin vehemently denies any wrongdoing, describing himself as a savvy entrepreneur whose success and donations to the election campaign of the assassinated president, Jovenel Mose, have afforded him a variety of privileges, including the ability to pay for the villa and get his wife a job at the Haitian consulate in Montreal. I have enough influence, if I wanted to make her an ambassador, that would happen, he told The New York Times. But The Times found little or no indication in Haiti of the thriving businesses that Mr. Clestin cites as the source of his great wealth. Some appear to operate on a much smaller scale than he claimed, if at all in some cases. His lawyer declined to provide details about his businesses with the anticorruption inquiry in Haiti underway. Anger over the mansion became so pitched that some members of Montreals Haitian community hid in the bushes around the home in Laval, an affluent suburb, and sneaked onto the grounds, hoping to confront Mr. Clestin and his family.Cri  Haiti is a poor country where people are dying of hunger, and here you have rich people trying to take their money out of the country and buying mansions in cash, said Frantz Andr, a leading Haitian human rights advocate in Montreal, who has led protests outside the Haitian consulate in recent months. Because Haiti, a country of 11 million people, has so few functioning institutions, Mr. Clestin could help play a pivotal role in the nations future. Only 10 senators out of 30 remain in Parliament, and Mr. Clestin is one. The terms of the other 20 expired, and new elections were never called. The lower house of Parliament is entirely vacant, and the head of the nations highest court died of Covid-19 in June. That leaves senators like Mr. Clestin among the few remaining elected officials in Haiti, with a powerful say in determining how the country should be led after the brazen assassination of Mr. Mose on Wednesday. But critics call the Senate dysfunctional. And as the country has spiraled into turmoil in recent months, members of the political elite have prospered abroad in places like the Dominican Republic, the United States and Canada, investing their money  and in some cases laundering it, the authorities say  through real estate. Despite billions of dollars in reconstruction aid after a devastating earthquake in 2010, the country has not rebuilt, and many contend it is worse off. Armed gangs control many areas, poverty and hunger are rising and officials like Mr. Clestin have been accused of enriching themselves while failing to provide the country with even the most basic services. Transparency International, the anticorruption monitor, ranked Haiti 170th out of 180 countries for perceived levels of corruption in 2020  tied with North Korea. In a rare interview in late March, Mr. Clestin, 46, said he amassed his wealth in farming, importing and other legitimate businesses that earned him millions of dollars a month. He gave his wife, Marie Louisa Clestin, the money to buy the mansion in late 2020, he said, so that she and their children could enjoy the social advantages of living in Canada. I dont have to justify myself, Im sick of having to do it, Mr. Clestin said. A son of farmers who grew up in a rural area, Mr. Clestin said he began his business career by importing products in a rented truck, sometimes sleeping on the sacks of sugar and flour he was shuttling. He is now a member of the assassinated presidents Bald Head Haitian party. I came from nowhere, and I became who I am with no support, he said. Referring to his critics, he added: I dont have to be scared of a bunch of vagabonds, bastards and criminals.  But the traces of Mr. Clestins business empire on the ground in Haiti differed greatly from the image he painted. He said he owned a giant henhouse in the Haitian city of Logne with 800,000 hens valued at about $60 million, but did not provide any supporting documentation. A reporter hired by The Times who visited the city could not find such a vast henhouse or anyone who had heard of it. Patrice Dumont, a senator from Logne, told The Times that Mr. Clestins project had been planned but never begun. Mr. Clestin said he also had a radio station called Model FM, which he started in a rural region but which grew to the point that he installed it in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital. The station does have a small, discreet office in the suburb of Petionville, with no signs. On the two occasions when The Times visited, the office was closed, or a single person was there who could provide no information about the station  not even an advertising rate sheet. Mr. Clestin said he also owned a gas company called PetroGaz-Haiti, but by his own description, it appeared to violate legal prohibitions against profiting from state funds. While politicians are permitted to own businesses, the Constitution forbids them from having contracts with the state, which Mr. Clestin said he had had for four years through the company. With outrage brewing, the Haitian governments Anti-Corruption Unit launched an investigation into the purchase of the Clestin home in Canada in February. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the national police force, said it could not disclose whether it was also investigating the transaction. But under Canadian regulations, the purchase should have raised a red flag, said Garry Clement, the former head of an R.C.M.P. unit that investigates money laundering. As a senator, Mr. Clestin is considered a politically exposed person under Canadian money-laundering regulations, which means financial institutions are required to perform due diligence to determine the source of any transferred funds greater than $100,000. These rules would also apply to Mrs. Clestin as the wife of a P.E.P., Mr. Clement explained. Mr. Clestin said everything about the purchase was above board. If I wasnt clean, I would have had a lot of trouble with the banks in Miami, he added, saying that he routinely transferred between $20 million and $30 million to Turkey to buy iron for what he described as one of his import businesses. I would be scared if my money wasnt clean.  But Mr. Clestin and his lawyer in Montreal, Alexandre Bergevin, declined to answer follow-up questions or provide the names of his import company or his farm. His wife, a counselor at the Haitian consulate in Montreal since 2019, did not respond to a request for comment. I am no longer at this level, the one where my wife or I am looking for work to live, Mr. Clestin said, emphasizing his wealth by adding that his chef in Haiti earned $4,000 a month. Despite the investigation into Mr. Clestin in Haiti, many activists there and in Canada were skeptical that it was being conducted in earnest. One said he had asked about the case just last week and was told by officials that they were not following through. A 2020 report by the State Department on human rights in Haiti said that despite many reports of government corruption, wrongdoers operate with impunity. The countrys Senate has never prosecuted a high-level official accused of corruption as required by the Constitution, the report said. In 2019, Willot Joseph, a senator with the assassinated presidents party, admitted on the radio that he had accepted a $100,000 bribe from a candidate for prime minister in exchange for a yes vote on his nomination. Three damning reports by the countrys Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes revealed in lengthy detail that much of the $2 billion lent to Haiti as part of a Venezuela-sponsored oil program, PetroCaribe, had been embezzled or wasted over eight years by a succession of Haitian governments. Since 2008, all elected officials in Haiti have been legally required to disclose their financial assets upon taking and leaving office. But a 2019 report by the Clear Eyes Foundation, a Haitian human rights group, revealed that few had done so over the previous 10 years, and that there had been no penalties or repercussions. Over the years, Mr. Clestin has faced multiple accusations of fraud and corruption, both in his election campaigns and in his role as a public servant. In 2010, when he was elected to Parliaments lower chamber, the elections were marred by allegations of corruption and fraud. Seven years later, when he won a Senate seat, his opponent said the vote had been rigged. In 2016, Mr. Clestin was living in a mansion when it was seized by the police during a drug trafficking investigation. Mr. Clestin denied the house had links to a drug dealer and said the accusations had been concocted by political enemies. Even before the presidents assassination this week, senior Canadian officials had expressed alarm over the deteriorating situation in Haiti and the countrys poor governance. We are concerned about corruption, and rising insecurity involving kidnappings, said John Babcock, a spokesman for Canadas Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in an April email. We are very aware the population is suffering.  Senior Canadian officials also said Canada had been strengthening legislation to combat money laundering and adding resources to fight it. A 2019 report by the State Department designated Canada a major money laundering country, citing weak law enforcement and gaps in its laws, putting it on a list of countries that included Afghanistan, China and Colombia. Money laundering experts said too few banks, notaries and real estate agents were reporting suspicious activities in Canada, and that money laundering cases seldom resulted in convictions. People think Canada is the Boy Scout of countries, but when it comes to real estate, that is not always the case, said Andy Yan, an adjunct professor of urban planning at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. Haitis Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked Mrs. Clestin to make herself available for questioning by the governments Anti-Corruption Unit, said the consul general in Montreal, Fritz Dorvilier. But Haitian activists say they have little faith in the inquiry. Pierre Esprance, executive director of the Haitian National Human Rights Defense Network, has called for Mr. Clestin to reveal records documenting his assets and expenses, such as custom slips from his imports of merchandise and his tax returns. He must pay a lot of taxes to the state if he is earning millions of dollars a month, Mr. Esprance said from his office in Port-au-Prince. He must show us the proof.  Mr. Andr, the Montreal-based Haitian human rights advocate, posted photographs of the homes lavish interior on his Facebook page, urging fellow Haitians to pay the family a visit. If you are of Haitian origin, this is your home too, he wrote. I suggest you ask for the lake view, he wrote. appeared first on New York Times. 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