CubaCurious 7/18/24 — 7/25/24
Crackdown on private businesses, water, power, food shortages—and a colossal budget deficit
Hola and welcome.
A little heavy on the economy this week, but that’s the greatest source of daily anguish for most Cubans. Números Uno y Dos are linked, so they get one headline.
At the end of the post, please look for two short human rights stories that I’ve been following and couldn’t keep myself from including this week.
Before you dig in, check out this 2-minute clip of Gritaron Libertad (They Screamed Freedom), a new award-winning documentary about the historic 11J protests. Emotional and powerful, in Spanish with English subtitles.
Here you go . . .
Números Uno y Dos
Private Sector Fined for Violating Price Control Policies—No Water, No Power, No Black Beans
The government’s effort to control galloping inflation is leading average Cubans to search for basic supplies, like frijoles negros, on the black market. The price controls affect PYMES, small and medium private enterprises recently authorized by the regime. Some of these have decided to halt sales of price-controlled items, like frijoles, rather than sell at the artificially low prices the government has set.
Private businesses cannot import directly and must use government run intermediary agencies. They also cannot surpass 100 employees and have profit caps. In May, the Biden administration changed embargo regulations to allow PYMES to open accounts in the US. But the new state restrictions will require PYMES to use Cuban bank accounts, an effort to keep foreign currency from leaving the government’s hands (banks are government owned in Cuba).
Minister of Finance and Pricing Vladimir Regueiro Ale reported 19,000 corrective actions on PYMES in a recent 5-day period, yielding 30,000,000 pesos in fines, with a violation detection index of 60%. Other penalties on the private enterprises included forced sales of price-controlled items, temporary shutdowns, and decommissioning unauthorized businesses.
Cubans are also dealing with severe food and water shortages and hours-long power outages. An unprecedented swell of complaints has rolled through social media. Complaining in public against the regime, once rare, is growing more common. Some residents are organizing street protests, unheard of until recently on the island, and the government has responded by sending water trucks to the area. The regime blames the problems on broken parts at plants, excessive consumer demand, and the US embargo.
Prices at a PYME in Holguin, Cuba /14ymedio. Food prices have risen 35% this year as a result of plummeting agricultural productivity.
Labor shortages are also cited as the source for the problems. Ten percent of the population has left the island between December 31, 2021 and December 2023. An estimated 60,000 Cubans are leaving the island each month. Cuba now holds two hemispherical records involving migration: the largest number of immigrants in the shortest time period (relative to population and geographic size) during the first half of the 20th century—and, as a result of the mass exodus of the last two years, the largest number of emigrants in the shortest period relative to the same factors.
Número Tres:
World’s Worst Projected Budget Deficit for 2024
Cuba’s projected deficit for 2024 (as a percentage of GDP) is the worst in the world, at 15.4%, followed by Ukraine (13.7%) Egypt (10.9%) and Zimbabwe (9.9%), based on IMF statistics. Cuba’s Minister of Finance and Pricing cited the slowing economy, financial imbalances, high inflation, unrealized planned income, lower than expected income from medical brigades, and the partial US trade embargo—the government’s usual scapegoat—for the colossal deficit.
Respected Cuban economist Pedro Monreal believes that “if the state’s new phase of ‘order and discipline’ truly aspires to ‘perfect’ its PYMES policies…it shouldn’t only ask what they [PYMES] have done wrong, rather what it [the state] has done wrong to foment such disorder and indiscipline.”
Monreal has criticized the regime’s pattern of investing heavily on tourism the public health crisis and the decline in education that directly affect Cubans. Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information’s (ONEI) own report for 2023 showed one third of investment dollars going to sectors related to tourism, a fact that contradicts the regime’s claims of prioritizing education and health.
The level of agricultural investment (11 times less than sectors related to tourism) also troubles Monreal, given the severe food shortages affecting average Cubans. Investment in education, health, and construction were all below 2% of the total.
Slide from Cuba’s ONEI 2023 report on government’s investment in economic sectors. Screen capture Pedro Monreal’s post earlier this year on X.
Cubans complain of having to bring basic supplies during hospitalizations, from detergent to clean bathrooms to pillows for beds, and of teacher and school supply shortages and a severe decline in the quality of education itself.
It’s common place for Cubans to offer bribes to hospital staff to get proper care. Cubans report that once the transaction is completed, the staff suddenly discover medicine or equipment they’d said they lacked. Health care bribes are so rampant that Health Minister José Angel Portal Miranda recently identified it during the speech as one of his priorities.
Unlike average Cubans, party and military elites attend separate hospitals and clinics, which also offer medical services to foreigners.
While other Caribbean destinations have surpassed pre-pandemic tourism levels, Cuba has not. It blames the US sanctions, particularly those passed in 2017. But both 2017 and 2018 were record years for Cuban tourism, with 4.7 million and 4.8 million visitors to the island, respectively. While Mexico and the Dominican Republic have surpassed pre covid tourism levels, Cuba has not surpassed 2.4 million visitors since the pandemic.
Human Rights Update
Activist Professor Fired from University
14ymedio, 25 July 2024. Anthropologist and human rights activist Jenny Pantoja Torres, a close associate of fellow academic and dissident Alina Bárbara López Hernández, was fired this week by the University of Havana, where she’d served as an adjunct professor. Pantoja Torres has stated that agents of the political police threatened her in her home on 21 June 2024 and referred to “her activities with Alina” as the reason for their visit, and that before leaving told her: “You can forget about your faculty job, forget about everything.”
In April 2024, the respected intellectuals were detained by police as they attempted to reach Havana to hold a silent vigil against censorship by Cuban authorities. López Hernández testified on CubaXCuba YouTube channel that when she asked why they were detaining her police threw her to the ground and dragged her over gravel, causing a head injury. As police pushed her into a patrol car, López Hernández grabbed a policeman and tore part of his uniform. She was charged with assault.
Alina Bárbara López Hernández and Jenny Pantoja Torres. Image shared by the former’s daughter / Facebook/Cecilia Borroto López.
11J Political Prisoner and Independent Journalist Released
The political prisoner and 11J protester, Carlos Michael Morales Rodríguez, upon release from prison (left) and in photo before his arrest. Photo © X / MercedesPerdig2
CiberCuba, 23 July 2024. Carlos Michael Morales, who appeared in last week’s post and had been on a hunger strike for 27 days, was released Monday and will remain under house arrest for eight months, where he’ll finish his 2-year 10 month sentence for participating in the 11J protests.
Gracias a Dios.