Telecommunications

Telecommunications D'Haiti (Teleco) is the monopoly government owned company in charge of all the telephone services. The state national bank (Banque de la Republique d'Haiti) holds 97% of Teleco. Not all the cities have telephone access, and line quality is hardly acceptable. The telephone density is close to 8 per 1000 persons, most of them concentrated in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. As of June 1991, the 15 digital plus 6 analog CXs allowed a total capacity of around 50,000 installed lines (only 15% out of the capital). The number of telephone employees per 1000 lines is 34 (far above the international standard of 7). For the Latin American and Caribbean region, the average number of principal telephone lines has climbed from 52 per 1,000 in 1985 to more than 90 in 1995. At present, there is a countrywide waiting list of more than 100,000 requests for the installation of telephone. The majority of these requests go back several years. Some customers have even already paid their basic installation fees without getting any service. The capacity available in the telephone centrals is near 200,000 lines and TELECO had planned to install these 200,000 lines throughout the country within 1999. A rural telephone program is also being implemented, aimed at installing nearly 600 stations in the various communities of the country. There is also a rural program to establish a specific network for the financial system (initiated by the Central Bank).

Haiti’s President appoints both the Chair and the Director of Teleco. The Minister of Works, Transport and Communications is Teleco's Vice Chair. A total of five Ministers sit on Teleco's Board of Directors, including the Ministers of Finance and Planning. Notwithstanding this leadership, there is a striking lack of accountability for Teleco's operations. According to representatives of the Central Bank, although its Governor sits on the board, Teleco "manages itself." The presence of Ministers from other important sectors on Teleco's board further complicates the accountability issue, and may in fact contribute to its evident divided loyalties, operational inertia, and unaccounted-for revenue shortfalls. Haiti has seen no increase in its 60,000 lines in the last few years, and reportedly only between 30-and-40,000 of those lines work at a given time. This is difficult to explain given its large work force (3200 employees), some $78 million in annual revenues, and just under $53 million in settlement payments from the United States. The Central Bank, the principal owner of Teleco, is therefore insulated from its operational problems. Teleco’s inefficiency, poor management, and lack of accountability, arbitrary or questionable business practices, do not affect the Bank’s daily operations. The Chairman of Teleco, as the Governor of the Central Bank, thus has little operational incentive to see to it that the problems with Teleco, service and otherwise, are solved.