Haiti cancels contracts with beleaguered senator: Reports

Santo Domingo.- Haiti’s government has canceled the contract to build the headquarters of two departments with the companies HOM ROFI, AD owned by Dominican senator Felix Bautista, and assigned the works to a Taiwanese company, Haiti local media report.

They also quote Planning and Foreign Cooperation minister Jose Yves Germain as saying that the transfer came aftter slow progress by the Dominican companies. He said the works must be finished within five months, or before president Michel J. Martelly leaves office.

Germain said the work started in 2011 with the Dominican contractors, with funding of US$16 million from Taiwan.

The companies owned by Bautista, who faces charges of embezzlement and malfeasance in the Dominican Republic, also built five sports arenas worth between ??US$2.0 million and US$3.0 million each.