Verticality and illegality

By Manuel Alberto Ramy

HAVANA – There are articles that one reads and – though they deal with apparently different topics – upon meditation one finds their core points or connecting links. That’s what happened to me, in connection with a couple of articles published in different media.

The first is by Prof. Esteban Morales, where he again takes up the urgent and necessary treatment of the phenomenon of corruption. The second is an article published Sept. 14 in the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, where a team of journalists – reporting on the law that will shelter the Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) – presents the reader with a 19-year-long history.

Let’s take these apart, as Jack the Ripper and my good friend Gustavo might say.

The article in Juventud Rebelde reports in clear Spanish that in 1993 a Law Decree gave life to the UBPCs. The decree granted autonomy to these organizations, but in practice they never enjoyed it. They were legally authorized to elect their own directors and administrators through an assembly of partner-members, but that authorization was amputated: the administrators were appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture (Minag) under Resolution 499/01, which considered them to be administrative cadres.

The economic retribution to each member, stipulated as a distribution of revenues, never was made. The “UBPCists” became salaried peasants. The law was violated systematically and entirely and the UBPCs “were born with problems because they were cooperatives, but we erred when we applied the rules and regulations for their operation,” said an official of the Ministry of Agriculture quoted by Juventud Rebelde.

I respectfully disagree. If the Ministry erred when it applied rules and regulations, as the newspaper says, then the UBPCs never were cooperatives, except in their basic and ideal conception.

Besides, by violating the Law Decree, as appears implicit, the Ministry officials disrespected the legal standards that protected the UBPCs, which is something more serious than erring on the rules. The latter exist to support, specify and apply the legal norms, not to lessen their extent, consciously or unconsciously. When this happens, not only is the law violated but also the intended objectives are frustrated, both in economic terms and political-social terms, generating a negative and frustrating impact on the population.

What role did that violation play in the shortages of supplies and the price policies? And in the population’s malaise, which I consider to be the essential factor of National Security? If the battle for the application of the new economic model ignores man, ignores the human person in his dual status as producer and consumer (a balance and harmony that must be preserved), national security suffers.

To split that dual status we all have is the clear objective of those who hope to invalidate the project of economic renewal.

Let me return to the topic. The article paints the following bleak picture: the 1,983 UBPCs in existence have about 160,000 members; they encompass 28 percent of the country’s farmland, but 23 percent of that land remains idle. Of the total number of UBPCs, 541 work directly in sugar-cane production and are responsible for 70 percent of its output.

 “By the end of 2010, 15 percent of all existing UBPCs had experienced economic losses and 6 percent weren’t even able to submit a balance sheet. In 2010, the Ministry’s UBPCs (number unknown) had a negative capital of 2.1 billion pesos, between debts and losses,” says Juventud Rebelde.

In an internal monologue, I ask myself: How is it possible that for 19 years these deformities and illegalities were not detected? Did a “UBPCist” ever claim his rights, either personally or officially, as a productive unit? Is this the first time in 19 years that an integral, in-depth analysis is made of this form of production? Were the provincial powers totally unaware of what was going on?

In my monologue, a first answer (not the only one): verticality, that authoritarian and unidirectional style of managing and directing from above, leads to fomenting in some cases (and solidifying in others) the mentality of accepting as good and valid everything that is handed down from above, no matter what the law says.

What’s worse, riding atop that mentality is the acceptance that laws and institutions go one way and real life goes another. And that reminds me of Morales’ article about corruption and theft.  Are they whims? No, violating or ignoring the law is a very bad habit, because it leads to the socialization of corruption.

The article by this professor and academician exemplifies how corruption works in the small units of services and/or production. Vertically speaking, the director of chief diverts resources, but what about his underlings? Looking away, the top shark “splashes” so those below him can “get wet.”

The much-needed institutionalization – a topic often repeated by President Raúl Castro – can only be achieved by the full existence of the laws, their correct application and observance. And by Man, the ordinary Cuban who must produce and, I repeat, consume the goods that are necessary for his life and satisfaction.

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