The communist regime governing Cuba announced over the weekend it would impose a series of “war-time” economic measures in a desperate effort to “save socialism” from the consequences of over half a century of socialist policies.
Cuba is experiencing a dire and complex economic situation that has resulted in high inflation rates, shortages of food, medicine, and other supplies, and near-endless power blackouts, water shortages, and other inhumane living conditions resulting from communist neglect.
Experts described Cuba’s situation this year as being worse than the “Special Period” of the 1990s, when the country suffered an economic catastrophe following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the communist regime’s top financier.
Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, announced on Sunday that the Castro regime’s figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel led a Council of Ministers meeting in which the ruling communists agreed to implement economic measures that would adjust the state’s budget to “war-time economy” conditions.
Some of the measures, according to Granma, include strengthening price controls on certain food items in Cuba’s so-called “private sector” as part of a “single, inclusive and equal pricing policy for all subjects of the economy.”
Some of the goods that will be subject to fierce price controls reportedly include chicken, cooking oil, sausages, pasta, powdered milk, and detergent.
Díaz-Canel claimed during the meeting that reducing Cuba’s budget deficit is a “priority” and advocated “having more control over expenditures,” such as canceling “excessive payments that the state sector is making to the non-state or private sector” while insisting on prioritizing participation of state companies in contracting services.
Díaz-Canel also emphasized the role that the Castro regime must play at a territorial level to counteract tax evasion “so that not a penny of the State budget escapes us.” The figurehead President asserted that there are “thousands of examples” throughout Cuba that, according to him, must be followed and promoted to “save” socialism.
“Each one of us, then, should encourage them to multiply, with the conviction that we are all here to save the Revolution and to save socialism,” Díaz-Canel said.
Cuban Economy Vice Minister Mildrey Granadillo stated during the meeting that the Castro regime moved to “allocate financial resources on a monthly basis in accordance with the actual income for the month,” as well as to define requirements for the “use of the approved budget” and “centralize its approval.”
Granadillo also stated that the measures seek to “correct macroeconomic imbalances,” attract more foreign currency to the country, “encourage” national production, and “organize” the operation of “the non-state forms of management.”
“In this sense, perfecting the planning mechanisms, the relations between the actors of the economy, the attraction of financing, eliminating tax evasion, and increasing production, are necessary actions in this process,” Granadillo said.
The Cuban independent media outlet 14 y Medio reported on Wednesday that while the price control measure did not go into effect on July 1 as originally planned, the Castro regime is expected to implement the controls at a later date. Cuban Finance and Price vice minister Lourdes Rodríguez told local media that the price controls did not go into effect on Monday “due to the need to continue exchanges with economic actors, on the realities they face in their import, transportation and marketing processes, as well as to address the public opinion.”
Cuban private entrepreneurship consultant Ángel Marcelo Rodríguez explained to the US-based outlet Martí Noticias on Tuesday that, “to date, the [Cuban] government has not stopped its desire to limit and control prices and has handed over this responsibility to local governments so that they can establish a price control policy based on the needs of the territories.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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