Fernando Damaso, 22 September 2017 — According to Cuban authorities, 32% of food services and of personal and technical services for domestic use are now operated by forms of non-state management. At the moment there are 4,173 of these businesses, of which 1,878 are dedicated to food services and 2,295 to personal and technical services.
It is also reported that, in 2014, 498 non-agricultural cooperatives (CNA) were approved while in 2017 there are 397 in operation, of which 62% are linked to the commerce and services sector and 17% to construction. In addition, in 2016, 291 state entities were managed as CNAs, an organization for economic and social purposes, which is voluntarily constituted (although there are many “induced” by the authorities) and is sustained by work of its partners.
It is also said that CNAs have their own assets, autonomy of management and cover their expenses and tax obligations with their own income (Resolution 305/12). All this constitutes a partial solution, which demonstrates the historical failure of state management.
The absurdity is that the agency (Ministry of Internal Trade) responsible for this failure, which was not able to efficiently run state enterprises of any kind, and destroyed them when they were under its direct administration, is now in charge of overseeing the good operation of this entire new structure, as well as controlling it and dictating its legal norms. As a part of this control it interferes in pricing, quality, and other matters that the services offer, issues that should be the responsibility of the new managers.
In addition, certain problems that conspire against the success of these forms of management have not been solved: there is no wholesale market with differentiated prices, state suppliers know nothing of contracting procedures, nor do they know how to negotiate with the CNAs, and they do not have transport to deliver supplies to them.
The socialist state, unfortunately, is inefficient and it is impossible for it to stop controlling and imposing “straitjackets” on the citizens, even if it is these same citizens who are the ones who solve the problems and render services with a quality that none of the state agencies, institutions and companies have achieved for years, and the body designated to ensure all this lacks credibility and the moral strength to do so.
Here it seems that the reason for maintaining a bureaucratic and incapable ministry, which has proved to be unnecessary and has acted as a “bottleneck” between producers, marketers and the population, complicating all kinds of distribution, is its “single achievement” of maintaining the greatly reduced “ration book.”
