Where did ETECSA’s revenue go?

[Editor’s Note: The Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) has faced a wave of criticism, even from its most loyal supporters, after implementing a severe limit of 360 Cuban pesos (CUP) per month on mobile data top-ups in CUP. During the Mesa Redonda TV show, an official from the state-owned monopoly company attempted to downplay the impact by stating that if the 360 CUP are depleted, additional packages can be purchased “with a little more” money. This statement sparked ridicule and backlash among users.]

I fully understand that ETECSA, the state-owned communications company and the only one authorized (a designated monopoly) to provide telephone and internet services in Cuba, requires new foreign currency revenue to upgrade its infrastructure and ensure the quality and continuity of the services offered to all citizens. This company, in turn, is part of a conglomerate of unaudited companies in the military sector, which collectively represent between 40% and 70% of the country’s economy or foreign currency revenue.

The decapitalization of ETECSA is fundamentally due to two factors: first, according to its own President, it does not control the fate of its revenues, as part of them goes to other sectors; second, the loss of the real value of the national currency and, consequently, the purchasing power of wages that all workers experienced after the so-called Monetary Reorganization Task. The rates that initially represented a value in foreign currency now hold very little due to relentless inflation, which is not caused by an enemy agent’s algorithm, but by the loss of the country’s productive capacity, combined with the effects of the blockade. This situation has resulted in internet service becoming relatively cheaper, leading citizens residing in Cuba to prefer purchasing packages in Cuban pesos (CUP) rather than having their relatives buy them abroad.

The gradual increase in national poverty, resulting from both external and internal factors, truly warrants a national protest. This situation explains why no Cuban citizen can cover the necessary expenses to live a minimally decent life with their salary or pension. On the one hand, subsidized basic food products and the general supply of CUP by the state have been eliminated; on the other hand, prices have risen in foreign currency collection stores and the non-state market. Even less can they maintain quality infrastructure for telephone and internet services with their taxes. As we know, this countrywide poverty also makes it impossible to keep other critical infrastructure, such as electricity, food, transportation, housing, healthcare, education, and roads. The country is in a multisystem crisis, undercapitalized, and deeply in debt.

¿A dónde se fueron los ingresos de ETECSA?

ETECSA was one of the companies that generated the most foreign currency in the country due to top-up packages from abroad or the purchase of cards in CUC, which was equivalent to USD before the Ordinance. For several years, it accumulated hundreds of millions or billions of dollars through these means, a figure that remains unclear because of the lack of transparency in Cuba’s governance model and the scant regard, no matter how much they attempt to conceal it, for the citizenry by the centralized power.

I would like to ask the National Assembly, along with some of its elected members, the following questions:

1. What was the large amount of foreign currency that ETECSA received over the last 10 years invested in?
2. Considering that this foreign currency inflow, along with the tourism and professional services sectors, was allocated to the state coffers, was its destination discussed in the ANC? Was there a discussion about what percentage would ensure the company’s long-term sustainability and what percentage should be allocated to other sectors unable to receive foreign currency? How is it possible that the country’s largest business conglomerate is exempt from audits?
3. Considering that you are supposedly the representatives of all citizens, when and how will you demand that the Council of Ministers, the Council of State, and the governing body of society, the Cuban Communist Party, take responsibility for leading the nation? You must counter the decades-long economic war by devising intelligent strategies that utilize our own natural and human resources, allowing our land to produce, our professionals to innovate, our entrepreneurs to thrive, and enabling their businesses to flourish, thereby preventing citizens from wanting to emigrate en masse.

My conclusion:

Thanks to this ETECSA tariff hike, similar to the neoliberal packages of any Latin American country, citizens have expressed their opinions without taking to the streets, using the very services they seek to restrict. What hasn’t occurred with the gradual loss of wages, nor with the near disappearance of the ration book—resulting in an alarming lack of food security for the population—nor with the repeated abuses by police, repressive, and judicial forces against citizens exercising their right to protest, has happened with these new internet access rates.

But, as Fidel himself said in 2010, “the Cuban model no longer works, even for us.” Thus, the main issue is not the sudden and poorly communicated increase in a tariff package, but rather the absence of a democratic model with genuine citizen participation. It is the lack of a socioeconomic system that promotes work and the absence of leadership with a strategic vision that understands how to address the significant impact of the blockade and mobilize internal forces so that the entire nation and its citizens can progress.

As many Cuban intellectuals and citizens have already said, we must rebuild the nation together, or everything will be lost, including the fragile sovereignty for which so much has been fought.

Dr. Abel Tablada is an architect, researcher, and educator in Cuba.