14ymedio, Fernando Donate Ochoa, Holguin, 8 June 2015 – People in Holguin are worried about the lack of home cleaning products, particularly so close to the beginning of summer. The shortages have worsened just when the health authorities are calling for extreme cleaning measures to prevent acute diarrheal diseases, which can be worsened by the heat and severe drought affecting the country.
The tips on frequent hand washing and thoroughly scrubbing kitchen appliances in every home, broadcast on national television, contrast with the deficit in the area’s markets of liquid detergent, chlorine bleach, degreasers and scrubbing agents. In local stores such as La Marquesita, Hanoi, Las Novedades and La Casa Azul, there are no supplies of any of these products.
Employees of the commercial network of stores selling in national pesos and hard currency in the provincial capital do not know why the shortages have been exacerbated. Customers, in turn, refer to the other provinces where these products are available. A situation taken advantage of by resellers who bring in the products from other provinces and sell them in the informal market.
The sector of self-employed workers in food services is among the most affected by the shortages. Holguin province has the fifth highest number of self-employed in the country, after Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara and Camaguey. In the entire country, those who work in the food preparation and sales represent 12% of the 495,725 people working in the private sector.
14ymedio, Fernando Donate Ochoa, Holguin, 31 May 2015 – The recently concluded sugar harvest failed to fulfill production forecasts. Analysts have struggled to explain the reasons for the repeated failure and have spoken of incomplete or ineffective repairs and poor organization, but none have mentioned the social factor.
Workers involved in cutting cane in Holguin complained of the abandonment to which they were subjected and multiple violations of their labor rights during the harvest that just ended.
Members of the Basic Economic Unit from the Loynaz Hechavarria center from the Cueto municipality say they worked more than 16 hours a day beginning at five in the morning during the four months of the harvest. continue reading
Heriberto Cuenca Tamayo, operator of a cane combine, told 14ymedio that his brigade had been victim of labor law violations and they were the group that suffered most: in spite of intense heat during these months, they had no cold water for lack of ice. Nor did they receive the promised work clothes, and they ate what they could manage on their own since they were not even provided coffee.
He mentioned that the enterprise is still in default on the incentive pay in convertible currency that is due the members of the team under the labor contract. He also lamented the lack of technical assistance that would have helped with the combine breakdowns during the cane cutting. They are only paid as operators, but they also had to act as mechanics, work for which they are not qualified.
“We were on our own when the machines broke, and in order to continue working we had to personally manage the parts and the repair,” Cuenca Tamayo told this daily.
Together with his companions, he said he felt unprotected. The bosses only speak of obligations, order, discipline and demands. “When they say to do more with less, it seems that they are thinking of more effort and worse conditions, more duties and fewer rights.”
“Neither the Constitution nor any other Cuban law legally establishes the right to strike, but nor did the union solve our problems in spite of raising them on several occasions,” said this cane worker.
For his part, Mario Gonzalez, harvest boss for the Azucarera Company, said that Holguin failed to meet the sugar production plan by not reaching the projected figure of 207,801 tons, lacking almost 4,000 tons to achieve the goal. In this harvest the province milled with only five of the ten sugar refineries it has had since 2002.
The official explained that among the causes that led to the failure are the breakdowns of the combines, the refinery stoppages for lack of cane caused by the late arrival of squads to the cutting fronts, and others of an organizational nature. “There was enough cane in the fields, but it was not known how to get it to the centers,” asserted Mario Gonzalez on a local radio program.
Young Holguineros celebrate the arrival of rain in Calixto Garcia park in the city center (Donate)
14ymedio, Fernando Donate Ochoa, Holguin, 2 May 2015 – The capital of Holguin received one-and-a-half inches of rain this Friday after months without rain. The city’s residents received the precipitation with hope that the drought in the territory would be alleviated, but expect a brief respite for agriculture and the consumption of water by the population.
The figure for Holguin was recorded at the weather station located in the area of the Pedagogical University José de la Luz y Caballero in the city, while in the town of Velasco two-and-a-half inches were recorded, according to what Jose Marrero from the Provincial Center of the Institute of Meteorology informed 14ymedio.
The rain, which started about 5:30 pm and lasted almost two hours, was not sufficient for recovery of the aquifer nor to fill the reservoirs affected by poor rainfall in recent months. This situation has plunged the province into a severe drought that affects more than 38,000 people and which, along with the high temperatures of recent days, has resulted in several fires.
“Four months of rain is needed to fill the reservoirs,” Marrero told this newspaper. However, in April less than two-tenths of an inch of rainfall was reported in the territory.
14ymedio, Fernando Donante Ochoa, Holguin, 23 March 2105 – the Holguin municipal government decided to hurriedly solve the problem of sewage running down 8th Street between 29th and 35th, in the La Quinta neighborhood, after having received a letter signed by more than 100 people who threatened not to vote in the elections for delegates to the Municipal Assembles of People’s Power on 19 April, if their demand for a solution was not met.
A commission composed of government functionaries went to visit the residents, according to Lino Rubisel Almira García, one of the signatories. “They visited us two days after they received the letter, at the end of last October. The committee wanted to make us desist from the decision, but when they failed to achieve their objective they agreed to approve an investment as soon as possible.
The speed with which the work was begun surprised even those who didn’t trust in the efficacy of a letter with political content adverse to the government to resolve a historic demand, raised since the early eighties in every “Renditions of Accounts Assembly” of the delegates with their constituents. continue reading
During all this time, the fetid sewage that ran along the street endangered the health of the inhabitants of more than 60 homes, according to the complaint of Leopoldo Peña Jiménez, another of the signatories, resident of the place since 1979.
The fear of the critical epidemiological situation of the city since 2014 – with the increase in illness like dengue fever, cholera, and hepatitis – resulted in a death that “forced us to use politics when we didn’t get results through established mechanisms,” added Peña.
During the “Process of Renditions of Accounts” of last October, the delegate reported that the work was not in the investment plans and that a long-term solution was projected due to the difficult economic situation threatening the country.
The speed with which the work was begun surprised even those who didn’t trust in the efficacy of a letter with political content adverse to the government
However, Peña remembers that, “When, in the eighties, the government had available resources, the requests to representatives and officials of the People’s Power was characterized, year after year, by false promises that, after they weren’t met, were excused with absurd justifications.”
Given the indolence of the authorities, the residents began to resolve the problem with their own efforts in 2010, placing 8 plastic tubes, each 3 yards long. The solution was insufficient, but the government never provided the necessary resources.
The current work began mid-month last November, and the work, paralyzed as of a month ago, is still incomplete. Those affected point out that there is a section where the putrid waters still flow, and lament that there are still seven open manholes in the sewer, which in addition to blocking free flow, constitute a danger for the risk of falls, especially at night in streets lacking good lighting.
The neighbors continue to wait for the completion of the works, and according to Lino Rubisel, are “willing to write another letter, if necessary.”
14ymedio, Fernando Donate Ochoa, Holguin, 8 June 2015 – People in Holguin are worried about the lack of home cleaning products, particularly so close to the beginning of summer. The shortages have worsened just when the health authorities are calling for extreme cleaning measures to prevent acute diarrheal diseases, which can be worsened by the heat and severe drought affecting the country.
