We make our own path

By Elsa Claro

15 April 2011

In an editorial from the catholic magazine Palabra nueva (New word), we find the following: “The end of the paternalist state will make some feel like orphans whereas others will experience liberation. We must be ready for the new reality, that of earning our living through our own effort after so many years of waiting for everything –even if everything was not that much- to fall from state’s hands.”

This can be linked to Raúl Castro´s virtual declaration of war on certain excesses of national life. Among them numerous prohibitions which made trivial facts become common offenses, as much as lack of information about several practices.

Before getting there it is worth discussing the reorganization of the operations of the whole administrative apparatus, and not only through comfortable bureaucratic maneuvers but with experiences on the field in several provinces, sort of rehearsals prior to a country-wide generalization in search of better management and more local autonomy.

Other studies deal with future salaries and the necessary difference between those who work and those who don’t. Payment according to efficiency, ranges from contracts during peak harvest time to fixed jobs. There are some workers already planning their holidays to engage in part time activities while keeping their nominal occupations.

This would be but one of the several aspects subject to test in the quest for new forms of work organization whether with state or autonomous employees. Iván Martínez, vice-minister of the Basic Industry, let it be known that mining permits will be granted to individuals in order to extract building materials, so as to offer further impulse to housing (34,014 houses were built in 2010, including 11,546 from the private sector).

Agriculture, despite the obstacle represented by an urban population that comprises 75% of the people, will be, and is, a priority. In the Scheme Document (the so called “Lineamientos”) there are some 30 articles devoted to that subject, several very liberal, according to a few experts. In order to achieve a still distant food supply sufficiency, from 2008 till today 1.18 million hectares were given in usufruct to approximately 130,000 applicants. More than 100 agricultural items have been produced by the renovated Iron Mechanic Industry and put at the purchasing power of producers who can also count on credits. Bureaucratic hindrances, as well as inefficiencies which endanger the distribution process, are still to be eradicated.

Brazilian croppers, Dutch equipment and Chinese trucks have been bought to guarantee the reorganization in this sector. The sugar cane harvest started in January with, as planned, 39 sugar mills and at least one of them, the Jesús Rabí in Matanzas province, housing several tests destined to provide better use of human and material resources as linked to new technologies and a highly efficient general management. The goal is to achieve a sugar mill model based on integral management systems and controls able to improve articulation between agricultural and industrial phases achieving more and expending less. And since foreign investments are a natural part of the talk of the town, and there are a few enterprises from abroad that seem to be interested in participating, the possibility of joint ventures is not to be ruled out.

In the last session of the Cuban parliament (2010), Raúl Castro affirmed: “It’s necessary to put on the table all the information and arguments which sustain each and every decision, while suppressing the excess of secrecy we have accustomed ourselves to during more than 50 years of enemy siege.” He also emphasized the right of the citizens to know and debate “those issues which define the political and economic course of the nation.”

Well, there are 619,387 proposals of suppression, additions and modifications, as well as doubts and worries expressed by more than 7 million people, about the economic scheme, backbone of future development. This is not yet fully printed but those who have worked in this area assure that new methods will be considered which will allow a greater participation of workers in all aspects of their concern.

As to the above mentioned aspect, the Gaceta Oficial, the official government gazette, published a decree announcing that all levels of administration “in areas such as economy, society, demography, geography, environment, institutional functioning,” and others will contribute to the Government Information System, a procedure, which according to both experts and laymen, will have the double mission of providing the government with reliable data, without passing through layers of consultants and officials who could be tempted to embellish it, and to open new channels of transmission.

To put into action effective institutional mechanisms of control and supervision a General Comptrollership of the Republic was created, whose chairwoman, Gladys Bejerano Portela, said, in a cabinet meeting a few weeks back, that such an instrument will not only serve to fight against crime and corruption but also to achieve a more efficient administration. In the first sense, not a few corrupted individuals have been removed from their responsibilities and submitted to legal action; on the other hand, the Cuban head of state has often stressed the importance of effective control not only as to the handling of technological renewal but also in the rescuing of discipline and habits of maintenance.

It is thus clear that there has been no unnecessary waiting for change packages. Serious projects have been put to the test so as to acquire not only a theoretical basis but also tangible results, a scale to be applied in other sectors and levels of society.

Some young economists have urged the amplification of foreign investment, which has been applied in such areas as tourism, nickel and oil since 1991. A related experience is that of the Port of Mariel, prepared for big vessels, with a system of warehouses, a base of containers and a network of roads of its own. This is a project that counts with the participation of Brazil, and member countries of the ALBA whose currencies will be taken into consideration. All this can make us presume that with a common accumulated experience and an open mind, no matter how difficult the journey may be, the path is only a question of responsibility.