Santo Domingo, RD.
Dominican President Luis Abinader clarified on Wednesday that the country will not invest funds in the construction of hospitals in Haiti, as was hinted in a bilateral agreement the content was disclosed on the eve.
“What the Dominican Republic is going to do, and it’s important to clarify that, is to be a channeler and facilitator of these aids,” Abinader said at a news conference during an act of presenting a housing construction plan.
The president assured that meetings with the ambassadors of the countries most involved with Haiti, including Canada, the United States, France and Germany, will begin next week to discuss the financing of these two hospitals.
Abinader’s clarification comes a day after his government released a bilateral statement signed during a meeting between the Dominican president and his Haitian counterpart, Jovenel Moise, that took place last Sunday.
At one point in this statement it is stated that “with the collaboration of the international community that has shown its willingness to fund hospitals in Haiti, the two presidents are committed to cooperating in the construction of general hospitals in Haitian territory. “.
Dominican authorities are interested in building hospitals in the neighboring country to prevent Haitian citizens from using Dominicans.
Abinader himself, last November, said his country cannot fund the large number of Haitian women giving birth in Dominican hospitals, a statement that caused unease in Port-au-Prince.
According to official Dominican figures, of the nearly 167,000 births that occur each year in the country, about 20,000 are from Haiti, although these statistics do not specify the migratory status of women.
Apart from the construction of hospitals, the leaders pledged to collaborate in the process of identifying and registering in the Haitian Civil Registry the hundreds of thousands of Haitians residing in Dominican territory.
Haiti is trying to set up a civilian registry ahead of the constitutional referendum scheduled for next April and the September presidential election.
In addition, the agreements include the start of a negotiation process to delimit the maritime borders between the two countries, and a commitment by both parties to monitor the border in order to combat the irregular migratory flow, human trafficking, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and cattle theft.
Border countries also spoke of strengthening cooperation in energy, agricultural and industrial production, as well as continuing negotiations aimed at reaching a trade agreement, which has never existed between these border countries, despite their significant trade flows.