( L - R ) Golding, Preval

PRIME MINISTER Bruce Golding has said that the region should be ashamed of the poor socio-economic situation with which Haiti is faced.

The Caribbean country, which is the poorest in the Western hemisphere, is blamed for exporting guns into Jamaica through the notorious guns-for-drug trade.

However, Prime Minister Golding, who met with René Préval at the just-concluded Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, said Jamaica will not be demanding that Haiti secure its borders to reduce the guns-for-drug-trade.

"I would feel uncharitable to burden President Préval now, with all 'of what he is going through to say look, Jamaica's priority is not to help you feed your people who are starving but for you to deal with the guns that are coming to Jamaica,'" Golding told journalists at the Norman Manley International Airport on Sunday.

Surviving on little

Golding was returning from the Summit where US President Barack Obama met with 34 Western hemispheric leaders.

According to the World Bank, Haiti ranks 146th out of 177 countries on the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index (2007/2008). The World Bank also said that 54 per cent of Haitians live on less than US$1 a day and 78 per cent on less than US$2 a day.

Local authorities have been co-operating with Haitians to reduce the flow of guns and drugs across borders. Golding said that Jamaica's role in the reduction of the trade must be to ensure it improves its surveillance capability.

At the same time, Prime Minister Golding said: "Haiti represents an embarrassment to the Western hemisphere. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves to allow the conditions that exist in Haiti to exist."

According to Golding, he was tempted to take money out of the national air carrier to help Haiti to survive.

Tempted to help

"I felt so much for Haiti today that, as bad as our situation is, I was on the verge of picking up the phone to call the minister of finance to say can we find a little something to throw into the fund," said the prime minister.

Among Haiti's most immediate needs, as outlined by Préval, is for 300 kilometres of road to enable agricultural produce to get to market and $120 million to supply electricity to several parts of the country.

The problems of starvation and unemployment are also major issues facing Haiti.