HAVANA – The session of the Council of Ministers where the government analyzed projections for “correct distortions and re-boost the economy “It had an air of a court martial, but no one thought that they would later depose three ministers and the first secretary of the communist party in Santiago de Cuba,” a state official revealed to DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS.
According to the source, “the meeting took place on Wednesday, January 28,” although the information appeared in the media the following morning. It was held in a large, high-strut room with walls covered in marble located in the Palace of the Revolution, former headquarters of the Court of Accounts.
In the center of the stage is a huge oval table with 31 ministers and heavyweights of the regime, sitting in white revolving seats. The meeting was chaired by Miguel Díaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero.. Behind him, an LED screen and the national coat of arms. On the right side of the room, another table with nine government leaders.
On both sides of the venue, two high-definition televisions measuring more than one hundred inches where the first secretaries and governors of the fifteen provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud followed the meeting by teleconference. At the back of the chamber, sitting in red seats, almost a hundred guests. The floor was also carpeted in red. It couldn’t be any other way: it is the tone that represents communist ideology.
The state official recognizes that the place, due to “its solemnity and impersonal atmosphere, is a little scary. The interior design has a Soviet touch. In the anteroom there were several small tables with thermoses of freshly brewed coffee and snacks. The typical nervousness before thundering at a ‘cadre’ (official) was not perceived. It was an information meeting on how and when to begin applying the new economic measures that have generated a lot of discontent among the people, but which the government considers cannot be postponed.”
Gil’s surprise
In that session, DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS could attest, it was not when the Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil was dismissed, who even had a leading role in the meeting. “He appeared several times and seemed calm and confident. It was a surprise that 72 hours later he was fired. Something happened at that time that caused him to fall,” indicates the source.
An employee of that ministry assures that “there were no indications that Gil was going to be dethroned. He was an unconditional ally of Díaz-Canel and an important figure in the design of the economic program. He wasn’t a bad person. Quite cocky, he behaved like a lapdog when he was in front of the bosses. But he had good manners and although many considered him improvised, for not being an economist by training, for years he successfully ran a state-owned marine insurance firm based in England. In the hallways everyone was wondering what prompted him to change the cow for the goat. Leaving London to take on a job in Havana seemed like professional suicide. As it happened in the end.”
Most local economists and analysts agree that the complex economic panorama that the Island is going through is not attributable to one person, a group or an institution. “The blame for the severe economic crisis that the country is experiencing is structural and multi-systemic. The model does not work. It is planned obsolescence, like when equipment breaks and cannot be fixed. Repairs or patches are of no use to get it up and running. The current structures must be demolished and everything made new. It is not a problem of names with more or less professional talent. It could be called Marino Murillo, Alejandro Gil or a Nobel Prize winner in economics like Paul Krugman. If you keep the ineffective system intact, it is impossible for it to work,” says Gustavo, a retired economics professor.
Héctor, an accountant for a state company, believes that “the economic model applied by the government is nonsense. He is dead. You have to change it. More than a third of state companies generate losses to the budget. Others obtain some benefit because they are monopolies that have no competition and due to inflated prices they fulfill their annual plans. But the quality of their productions is terrible.”
parasitic structures
“And they are undercapitalized, since 70 percent of the profits are controlled by Higher Business Management Organizations (OSDE), parasitic structures created by the government that slow down productivity, autonomy and competitiveness. It is not serious to talk about businessmen when we refer to to the state groups. They are simple administrators who execute the directives of a ministry that in turn receives orders from someone in the government. The private sector, despite the absurd obstacles and limitations, has much more room for maneuver. And when they verify that political interference affects them, they close the business and that’s it,” he explains and adds:
“The solution to get out of the cyclical economic crises that affect the country is to bet on the market economy and give autonomy to companies. Create worker cooperatives and have them be the real owners. Allow direct foreign investments negotiated by the company without the government intervention. Eliminate OSDEs, reduce exaggerated taxes to allow them to flourish, and privatize or sell those companies that cause losses through transparent bidding. Only in this way can we design a sustainable, modern and functional economy”.
On the street, the dismissal of three ministers and the first secretary of the communist party in Santiago de Cuba has generated greater discontent. “It’s business as usual. They remove one and put another from the same litter. That is not going to solve anything nor is it going to appease the discontent of the population. We Cubans want access to food, medicine, decent salaries and public transportation that works. I don’t care if they remove Gil or Sobrino and put Joaquín Alonso in the economy ministry or Alberto López in the food industry. They should throw them all away. Starting with Raúl Castro and ending with Díaz-Canel. It is the only way for the country to get out of the crisis,” says Mireya, a housewife.
Eduardo, an engineer, believes that “they needed those guinea pigs to pay for the government’s continuous nonsense. Díaz-Canel does not put one. He has been on the throne for six years and the island is falling apart. Within a while, those dismissed will be put in charge of a foreign firm where the money flows. Like Murillo, who after destroying the economy and emptying the pockets of Cubans with the Ordering Task, without much fuss they removed him and put him in charge of a tobacco exporting company. In Cuba the ‘cadres’, as long as they remain silent, fall downwards.”
Smokescreen
An employee at the Capitol, the current headquarters of the monotonous national Parliament, says that “these dismissals are a smokescreen to try to appease people’s discontent. But the package still stands. They have paused to fill the people with ‘teques’ and political indoctrination. They try to convince us that if we tighten our belts more, we will live better. I don’t believe in these people (those of the regime). I work in a State institution and I know about the arrogance of the leaders, how they live and the good food they eat.. They do not lack foreign currency in their wallets or gasoline in their cars. “It is an olive green bourgeois elite that wants to sell itself as proletarian.”
Javier, a private taxi driver, does not understand why “those who went out to protest on 11-J were punished with ten or fifteen years in prison and those ministers who have impoverished Cubans and disrupted industries and agricultural production and who, Furthermore, they have caused half a million people to leave their homeland in just over a year, they are not penalized.”
Niurka, a university student, agrees that many of the current leaders “have sunk Cuba without giving explanations to the people. And that is a crime. “They should be in jail.”
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