Port-au-Prince, December 18, 2025.- On Thursday 18 December, the Superior Court of Accounts and Administrative Litigation (CSCCA) released its second compliance audit report on the Multisectoral Emergency Programme for the Calming and Social Reintegration of Vulnerable Groups (PUMARSGV). It is a 96-page document that highlights serious governance, management and accountability failures following a financial and operational audit covering the period October 2023 to February 2025.
The report first highlights the near total failure in implementing the recommendations made in the first audit. Of the nine recommendations accepted by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour (MAST), none have been fully implemented to date. Five were only partially executed, while four remained unanswered. For the CSCA, this reflects incomplete governance and weak institutional coordination, compounded by political instability and the low absorption capacity of the ministries and public bodies involved.
At the budgetary level, the implementation rate is estimated at about 75 per cent on the basis of the allocations for the period 2023-2024, but it falls to almost 60 per cent when the funds actually available and the delays in disbursement are included. In total, nine billion three hundred and four million four hundred and eighty-six thousand two hundred and fifty-six gourdes (HTG 9,304,486,256.21) were mobilized, some of which remain underutilized due to planning and coordination problems.
In the continuity of these shortcomings, the Court notes serious shortcomings in terms of accountability and transparency. The documents submitted for audit indicate a general absence or insufficiency of supporting documents, persistent delays in the production of sectoral reports and a monitoring and evaluation mechanism deemed not operational. The report also calls into question the weaknesses of the MAST Information System (SIMAST), which is used to target beneficiaries, as well as worrying situations, including the non-payment of more than 3,000 workers mobilized on the Ministry of Agriculture's construction sites for lack of valid identification documents, despite the alert sent to MAST for almost a year.
In view of these findings, the CCSCA calls for a fundamental overhaul of the management system of PUMARSGV, as the programme is coming to an end and its renewal is envisaged. The Court stresses the need to strengthen coordination, traceability of expenditure and accountability in order to ensure the consistent and effective use of public funds for the most vulnerable populations.
R.J.
