The country is heavily corrupt. Every year much of the humanitarian aid is pocketed by officials.
According to a World Bank report in 2006, "In Haiti, the process of business regulations is complex and customs procedures are lengthy."[4] On average, opening a business took 204 days. For comparison, the average was 73.3 days in Latin America and 16.3 days in OECD countries.[4] It took estimated 5 years and 65 bureaucratic procedures for a private person to buy land from the state.[4] It took 683 days to register a property.[4] All Latin American and Caribbean countries except Cuba and Venezuela enjoyed much more economic freedom than Haiti on the Index of Economic Freedom of 2006.[4]
The political elite is also involved in various criminal businesses. Beaudoin Ketant, a notorious international drug trafficker, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's close partner, and his daughter's godfather, confessed that Aristide "turned the country into a narco-country; it's a one-man show; you either pay (Aristide) or you die".[5] According to the BBC, pyramid schemes "were only real economic initiative of the Aristide years." Estimated $200 million was lost in these scams.[6]