Gasps and sighs for the year

By Elsa Claro

HAVANA – When you’re in the shade, you feel the heat less, grandfather Perico used to say every time that we wanted to turn some opinion into dogma. As realists, those of us who look at events in Cuba in the past 12 months tend to express one or one thousand opinions. Many of them have an almost fundamentalist tone.

Whether academicians or laymen, we repeatedly mention the slow pace in the execution of the directives approved by the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, April 18 of last year, in a report on the island’s economy. We understand that we should do things slowly and well, but the daily pressures accumulate and provoke impatience in ordinary citizens who depend on a salary or a pension, both of which are insufficient as long as the price of food remains so high.

The mistakes in the performance of any enterprise are more visible today. The same happens when people plan badly and the result is felt in the shortages of some products, or when commercialization, both agricultural and industrial, is deficient. Plainly speaking, that sector is barely limping along. 

The press recently highlighted the case of household cleaning supplies. The industry delivered its products in the amounts and the time requested, yet the items are not always in the stores. It’s like what happens with the trucks full of food that spoils because of delays in delivering the food to the market. And I’m not talking about the past but about (lamentably) the present.

Lady Bureaucracy and Mrs. Negligence travel together, sometimes accompanied by Mr. Corruption. To certain functionaries, it’s the comfortable or convenient thing. In some cases it might be a passive resistance to change. Shouldn’t the courts take a look at that "incompetence"? What is not done willingly needs a strong dose of discipline, am I right?

Among the virtues of the new style of official work in Cuba are the systematic controls, about which we learn through the Council of Ministers. Another strength is the ability to modify anything that doesn’t work, as events develop, even if the modifications are done repeatedly.

That prescription has been spot-on in topics like the tax system and the adjustments in laws on land grants and has been part of issues involving the production of food, an issue that still needs some flexibility, especially in terms of commercialization. The mechanism fails or is imperceptible in other important sectors of people’s lives.

A columnist in the daily Granma wondered the other day how is it possible that a regulation contained in the Guidelines is not being enforced. We also wonder why other regulations are not enforced. Among the opinions coming from different social levels there are fears concerning the slowness of the legislation.

While it is a tough job to modify or pass new laws, some of them are essential to tackle objectives that are included among the 300-some objectives in the economic model being established. Yet, they take a long time to appear, and so do their objectives.

The recent announcement that urban cooperatives have a green light, thus expanding the number of jobs that can be performed by self-employed workers, satisfies some expectations but doesn’t assuage many fears. While several lines of action are intended to ease many municipal regulations affecting material and human resources (a good tactic for development), the experts say that the structure that supports those lines of action needs to be adequately maintained. That presupposes the need to look ahead and look ahead again.

A study of some resolutions that could alleviate or finish a good number of projects indicates that there is a need for a strong magnifying glass. For example, the regulation that allows state organizations to outsource their services to private individuals works more or less well but doesn’t always take into account the distortions or accidents that occur when the contractor is paid. The institutions have a budget for that purpose, but they don’t always observe realistic quotas.

For example, consider a trade that is both rare and useful: the repair of medical instruments. To recover resources that are so expensive in the world market means million-dollar savings for the nation. However, the distributor’s prices to the hospital are strongly subsidized. The law says that payment to the repairman must not exceed 30 percent of the cost of the instrument, but if that price was adulterated with the aforementioned subsidy, the payment to the repairman becomes so insignificant that it doesn’t justify the man’s effort. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens in other sectors or activities.

It is mandatory that we put under a microscope whatever is wrong or ill-conceived in many rules and forms that never worked. By continuing to exist – fully or in part – in small type, they hinder the changes.

And it’s time to apply corrective mechanisms that will help to consummate whatever is resolved and eliminate the utopian, accommodative and sometimes voluntarist nature of some people who are putting the brakes on anything that would benefit the country. To a degree, these attitudes are projected upon society by encouraging social indiscipline. It seems that breaking away from irresponsible routine is tougher to do than expected. 

And because not everything is in the shade or in the blazing sun, there are some hopeful signs. As part of the central activity or as adjunct to the great poles of development, it is likely that our economy will grow this year a little more than predicted (3.4 percent). This is a consequence of investments and productive activities in industry and construction. Also contributing to this is the stress on increasing exports and reducing imports by an expansion of domestic production.

The current sugar harvest was said to be "average" in the first quarter of 2012. But the fact that Sancti Spiritus province completed its production schedule ahead of time and was the first province to produce export-quality white sugar with new technology brings pride to a sector that has suffered much deterioration.

The global crisis and the heretofore inefficient measures that the wealthy nations have applied to resolve it can impact on a small, besieged country. But it is obvious, from what’s been achieved so far, that if the endeavor is directed well, the end results will be beneficial.

However, it is necessary to look very closely at the many endeavors that are halfway done or about to begin. As a rifleman would say, we need to hone the sights.

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