JIMANI, Dominican Republic — For more than six weeks after its devastating earthquake, Haiti left its border with the Dominican Republic open to speed the delivery of aid. As the government now reasserts control, the return of bureaucracy is leading to delays as trucks idle for days.
One day this week at the customs office at Malpasse, the Haitian town across from Jimani, a single agent was processing a caravan of trucks that stretched for 2 miles. In the line were rice, beans, canned food, construction materials and ambulances — all desperately needed in Haiti.
“We haven’t been able to distribute food for two weeks,” said Paloma Rivera, an official with Quisqueya in Action, a nonprofit Dominican organization that is feeding some of Haiti’s homeless quake victims.
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said border controls are necessary to intercept contraband and also raise revenues from commercial drivers’ import fees.
“Some kind of control is needed,” said Bellerive, who added that delays were to be expected. “There is a lot of traffic across a border that was not prepared for that.”
The main southern road between the two countries that share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola became a major throughway for humanitarian aid after the magnitude-7 quake Jan. 12, which killed an estimated 230,000 people and left more than 1 million people homeless. Some say an alternative route cannot come soon enough.
Mario Polanco, who works for a Dominican company contracted by the Red Cross, was transporting heavy-lifting equipment. He said a Red Cross representative was coming to the border each day to help, but the customs agent kept finding new problems.
“Everyday it’s something different,” he said. “Now the number on the truck doesn’t match with the papers.”
Aid delivery by the U.S. Agency for International Development has not been affected by the recent backups at the border, according to Kimberly Flowers, an agency spokeswoman in Port-au-Prince. She said most of its supplies arrive by sea, and USAID has its own customs and leasing agents to expedite material over land.
