Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille (right) briefs media when he visited the Administration Police Training College in Embakasi accompanied by the Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja (left) on October 12, 2024.
As Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille leaves Kenya, he will fly into a storm over Sh100 million corruption scandal linked to the people who voted to put him in office in the Caribbean nation.
Dr Conille has been in Kenya since last Thursday for a four-day visit at the invitation of President William Ruto who urged the international community to provide urgent financial support to sustain a police deployment in Haiti, which has been extended by a year.
President Ruto said the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission does not have enough budget to finance operations until October 2025.
Dr Conille leaves Kenya for his home country where a scandal has rocked a body that was instrumental in installing him into office in the lawless nation torn apart by gang violence.
Three members of the Presidential Transition Council (CPT), which named Dr Conille as the interim Prime Minister, allegedly tried to extort 100 million de gourdes (equivalent to Sh100m) from a bank executive to extend his tenure as president of the state bank.
The trio tried to convince Raoul Pascal Pierre- Louis, who is the immediate former president of National Credit Bank (BNC), that they would ensure his term in office was extended.
They have since been dismissed following a report by Haiti’s Anti-Corruption Unit (ULCC).
In a letter dated July 24, 2024, addressed to the Prime Minister, Mr Raoul Pascal Pierre- Louis, then President of the Administrative Council of the Banque Nationale de Crédit (BNC) denounced the three members of the Presidential Transitional Council for the bribery scandal.
According to a report by the anti-corruption body, on May 25, 2024, Mr Raoul arrived at the Oasis Hotel in Haiti and held a meeting with the three.
At the time, Mr Raoul really wanted to go on with his role at the helm of the bank. The three members of the board had long stopped serving.
At the hotel, Mr Raoul was directed by one of the officials to a room where the other two members of the presidential advisory team were waiting.
Mr Raoul said he did not have the amount that they had demanded and instead he was willing to facilitate loans from the BNC for the trio, provide them with credit cards or give them a list of the bank’s unused assets.
However, the banker was still dismissed by the government and this angered him leading to him writing a protest letter on July 24, 2024, to the Prime Minister’s office.
The report by the anti-corruption body was made public after credit cards with limits of between Sh1.7 million to Sh2.5 million were distributed to four key players.
Mr Raoul had personally approved the limits outside the standards of BNC’s procedures.
According to the document by the anti-corruption body, negotiations for the credit cards kicked off on May 25.
It is Mr Raoul who was responsible for paying the expenses incurred by the advisors.
One of the officials had made a request for his credit card on May 15 but could only make his first transaction two days after the May 25 meeting, the report revealed.
Days later, his credit card was blocked as he failed to pay his debt.
The report revealed that they received a total salary of 220,000 gourdes equivalent to Sh215,398.
In the report, another person who identified themselves as a friend to the official requested he get his card. This happened on May 15, 2024.
Three days later he went and did a transaction which is now part of the ongoing investigations by the anti-corruption body.
The other two officials of the transition council received their cards on May 27, and started using them on June 1.
Ever since the investigations by the anti-government body kicked off, the three started making payments saying that they had obtained the cards legally.
