Haiti imposes austerity measures as Iran war drives up oil prices and disrupts supplies

Haiti’s gov­ern­ment an­nounced new aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures on Tues­day as the war in Iran dis­rupts crit­i­cal oil sup­plies and dri­ves up prices world­wide.

Of­fi­cials in the trou­bled Caribbean coun­try im­posed a ban on the pur­chase of any new ve­hi­cles, will re­duce fu­el ex­pen­di­tures for pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and said that for­eign trav­el will be lim­it­ed to es­sen­tial mis­sions au­tho­rized by the prime min­is­ter.

In ad­di­tion, se­cu­ri­ty es­corts will be lim­it­ed to one ve­hi­cle in a coun­try where gangs con­trol an es­ti­mat­ed 90% of the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, and swaths of rur­al ar­eas.

A state­ment signed by Prime Min­is­ter Al­ix Di­di­er Fils-Aimé said that the mea­sures will al­low the gov­ern­ment “to an­tic­i­pate se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions on the al­ready frag­ile macro­eco­nom­ic bal­ance and pub­lic fi­nances in par­tic­u­lar.”

“The gov­ern­ment has no choice but to fur­ther re­duce state spend­ing,” the state­ment said.

Pover­ty across Haiti has deep­ened as gangs con­tin­ue to seize con­trol of more ter­ri­to­ry since the Ju­ly 2021 as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse.

Coun­tries around the world have tak­en oth­er mea­sures as the war rages on, in­clud­ing shift­ing to a four-day work week.