Why are the roads in Haiti so bad?

As you travel slowly down Haiti's rural roads---bumpy, rough, at times nearly impassable---at every milepost there are signs that say "French extortionists stole the money"; interpreted, this means for over 100 years enormous debt slavery payments to the French stole the money that could have paved this road.  But to most people who travel these roads, these signs are invisible, unless you are wearing a special pair of glasses.  Only historical glasses will enable a person to make the connection between past debt slavery beginning in 1825 and current bad roads.

At the same time that French extortionists were stealing billions (in today's terms) from Haitians, American oppressors were using wealth from "free" black labor to build schools, colleges, railroads, etc., on. "free" Indian land.

A sense of perspective from The Debt by Randall Robinson:

"Africa pays out upwards of 20 percent of its export earnings in debt service to Western creditors, making economic development a sheer impossibility.  In the late 1940s after it had nearly brought the entire world to ruin, Germany was never required to pay out in debt service more than 3.5 percent of its export earnings.  The IMF requires its African debtors to cut their subsidies to African farmers, schools, and health caregivers.  Inoculations are down.  Infectious diseases are up.  Agricultural production is down."

By comparison, at times the Haitian government was required by the French to pay 80 percent of its income to France leaving little monies to build Haiti's roads, etc.