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And since in these Roundtables we are never amazed by what is said, it turns out that one of the attendees, Yamil Hernández, manager of Fincimex**, explained that his entity has been charged by a monopoly regime with managing the only financial card processing center that exists in the country, presenting this as “an idea of Fidel Castro concretized in the 90s that allowed us to conform to international standards of being able to process international cards and create the bases of national issuers and domestic cards in the country.” Yes, unbelievably, Fidel Castro personally decided who made the plastic money in Cuba. Just Imagine.

After this “tribute” to the dictator, Hernández pointed out that in recent years there has been a “quantitative and qualitative leap in the processing of international and national cards, demonstrated by the technological transitions we have been able to undertake, the volume of transactions managed and the number of POS operations in the nation.” And he pointed out that the deployment of the IP network in the country did not take place until a date as recent as 2018.

In this regard, he indicated that 18,530 point-of-sale terminals are currently operating in the country, with an annual growth of 39%, clearly unbalanced and asymmetrical, since notable territorial inequalities are observed, with the provinces with the lowest increase being Guantánamo, Mayabeque and the Special Municipality of the Isla de la Juventud (Island of Youth). He also acknowledged that as the number of transactions grew, “difficulties still persist in the use of POS, since there are about 3,000 terminals that have not been used in the last quarter. In sum, 23% of the network, almost a quarter of establishments, have no operations.

The director pointed out that they have the objective of achieving the disaggregation of the network, since currently 70% of the network is focused on the organizations with the best connectivity conditions belonging to the tourism sector, CIMEX, TRD and the Bank. Other actors such as ETECSA, Mincin, airlines and non-state actors also have a number of POS in their establishments, but in the rest of the Cuban economy, the segment of poverty and the Cuban peso, these percentages are not given. And it doesn’t look like that’s the way it’s going to go.

Because, in addition to this development, the existence of recurring complaints in the population is recognized, of which the most relevant is the connectivity and the absence of an infrastructure that guarantees the connectivity of Fincimex and the response of the issuer. And here were cited several cases that really affect the process of bancarización of operations, such as local disconnections or problems with the platform that require a continuous level of investments, which the regime does not guarantee, given the concentration of investments in hotels.

Another no less important complaint from the population has to do with the requirement to capture the client’s personal data when an operation is carried out. People still do not trust service providers despite the fact that banks or businesses are obliged to validate identities. The fear of control is a real brake on operations.

Likewise, the director reported that 77% of Cimex establishments accept the QR code for payment, which is operated by the largest POS network in the country, and he announced the intention to “create new added values, re-analyze the commissions applied to customers, personalize the service, incorporate Android technology and wireless POS, as well as sustain the quality of the network.”

Regarding the QR code, he said that two types have been developed, one issued by the equipment itself and 127 units where the QR code is issued by the cashier, which allows two payment variants, by national and international cards and by QR codes. He announced the intention to expand the number of wireless POS terminals with all modalities such as those recently incorporated into the restaurants of the historic center.

Next, Marta Mulet, commercial specialist of Tiendas Caribe, intervened, and pointed out that since March 2022 they added different payment channels, which allowed sales to triple after starting in a single store and gradually extending the process to the rest, such as on the beaches of eastern Havana or at “electronic fairs that are organized with different organizations and actors in the provinces.”

Regarding the operation of electronic payment in the country’s services, Yamil Hernández said that there is a culture in that sense, that it was making its way from transactions with business cards and that seven million transactions with cards of this type have already been processed. In any case, given the small size of the fleet of cars and private vehicles in Cuba, the impact of these transactions is limited, and, once again, it brings notable economic and social inequalities.

Among the means of payment that were studied to carry out the operations were disposable cards, a product designed for eventual consumers (tourists, for example), who can purchase them in more than a thousand Cimex establishments, with telecommunications agents in Cimex and in Cadecas. He reported that more than 19 million disposable cards have already been sold to date and that the process has been modified, according to the needs of consumers. For example, the possibility of linking up to five cards at one time and the development of a mobile application that allows customers to check the balance of their cards, to see if they are active, etc.

Electronic pins are also available to customers, a modality developed in conjunction with Transfermóvil, and through this application, customers can buy a fuel coupon. When they go to the gas station, Transfermóvil shows a QR code, which the clerk scans and charges through that route. And here it was said that the “most innovative option is the rechargeable chip card, designed for customers who do not necessarily bank, since it is a modality that does not require connection, and as long as there are credits on the chip, the operation is authorized.

The card is free of charge, distributed in the Fincimex offices located in the provincial capitals. In the case of Havana, it is also available in 23 Cimex establishments. To create a credit on the balance, Yamil Hernández reported that there are 433 points where it can be done, by bank card transfer or in cash.

The Roundtable attendees concluded that the gas stations are an “avant-garde institution in the use of digital payment in Cuba” and that this transformation implies a challenge in terms of attention to the consumer and the need to instruct him. Lázaro Ayala, director of Servicentros of Cimex, said that “a work schedule was designed to implement the transition to digital payment gradually, so that the cash sale of fuel in all gas stations is eliminated.”

Some 99% of the gas stations have an IP connection, except for two in Matanzas where the rechargeable chip card can be used. For three years they have given seminars to workers, so that they can give their customers clear explanations about the various means of payment they can use.

And at this point it was announced what was feared by some spectators who survived the Roundtable at that late hour, which is that those customers who don’t have an online payment method but have the physical money will be able to purchase the rechargeable chip cards in an area adjacent to the service providers. No one escapes the hierarchical order of the regime. And cash is seriously running out in the gas stations.

So the message was very clear: “Beginning September 1 and until October 31 we will gradually eliminate the sale of fuel in cash in the gas stations. This process will be accompanied by our Cimex directors and officials, to resolve any eventuality.” The statement is not exempt from sarcasm: “in case of complaints or suggestions, the administrators of the services can be contacted, and, if the problem is not resolved, there is a unique number established for customers to address their concerns (80000724), the Cimex profiles on social networks or the email atencionalcliente@cimex.com.cu.” No more paying for gasoline in cash.

Translator’s notes:

*”Bancarización” is a term used in Cuba and other Latin American countries that refers to government efforts to reduce the role of cash through a greater reliance on banks’ digital payment options. The term does not seem to have a counterpart in English so the Spanish term is used throughout this translation.

**Financiera Cimex S.A. (FINCIMEX) is a financial investment and remittance company owned by GAESA and incorporated in Panama. Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA) is a Cuban military-controlled umbrella enterprise with interests in the tourism, financial investment, import/export, and remittance sectors of Cuba’s economy. GAESA’s portfolio includes businesses incorporated in Panama to bypass CACR-related restrictions.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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This is why the National Assembly of the People’s Power of Cuba, whose obedience to the single party is providential, will hardly open spaces for land ownership in the next Draft Land Law, currently in the process of being created. And this, despite the fact that this is the most appropriate time to address a debate that the Cuban communists simply despise, because they know that if they assumed certain postulates, their time in power would end.

In Vietnam the communists continue to rule, but the social and economic evolution in that country since the reforms of the Doi Moi have completely removed it from Castro’s poverty and misery, and today Vietnam is close to the advanced nations in the World Trade Organization. The Vietnamese people, although they lack political freedoms, have seen their income levels rise exponentially along with quality of life and prosperity, which are the bases for the development of democracy.

No one should imagine that this could happen in Cuba. The state press highlights, for example, that the Draft Land Law has as its background in the agrarian reform laws of 1959 and 1963, which constituted the first radical change in the agrarian structure and the redistribution of wealth in the country. So it is established that the redistribution of wealth and the contingency of land ownership, in pursuit of social interest, with principles and budgets that constitute premises for the transformations in terms of land use and possession in Cuba, will be maintained in the Preliminary Draft.

Not content with the failure of the change in land property rights produced more than 60 years ago, the communists return to their old ways and are inspired to draft a 2023 law like one of the most terrifying ideological failures of the so-called revolution: the agrarian reform.

As has already been indicated, the law only considers the planning of the countryside in terms of the use and possession of the land, which they say has direct impact on the control and legal guarantees for farmers. What is not indicated is what guarantees the rights of those who are deprived of property, and most likely we will find ourselves again with a relationship of “rights” that will be offered from the top of the regime down to the farmers, but without altering the hierarchy or operating structures.

An article by the Legal Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, published on its website, addresses what little is known about this Preliminary Draft.

And here are some issues to highlight:

First of all, the communists continue to believe that the solution to the lack of food in Cuba depends on the reorganization of the use and possession of land in Cuba, without touching the issue of property rights. And once again they are wrong, because the solution to the agricultural problem is not about putting on makeup or making superficial transformation. It’s about putting the hoe in the ground and digging hard.

It requires structural reforms of land ownership that reward the work of the farmers. The land must be mostly privately owned and subject to commercial activity within a law that won’t interfere. It seems unbelievable that after six decades of failure and agricultural unproductivity, the communists believe that legislative changes involve reordering the use and possession of land.

This same old song will lead them to a much worse situation than the current one, which doesn’t take into account the true aspirations of the Cuban farmer. Most likely this Draft will not save the sovereignty and food security of the nation, nor will it help to improve agricultural yields.

Second, to establish the issue of the legal framework of land, the aforementioned Draft refers to the provisions of the communist constitution of 2019, where a series of “forms of property” were fixed about land. This left the “private” land with the marginal character that it has historically had since the confiscations and expropriations of the so-called agrarian reform of Fidel Castro.

The constitution also serves the Draft for references to the protection of the right to healthy and adequate food, access to justice and due process and procedure, all based on sustainable development for individual and collective prosperity. You can see that Castroism talks about guarantees and rights that end up being nonexistent and not exercised by those affected, out of fear.

Third, the Draft is justified by Cuba’s need to respect the international conventions to which it is a signatory. It is curious that the regime respects the outward appearance of possession, use and access to land and agricultural goods that are established in those agreements, but it forgets and despises everything related to private property.

There is no point in relying on those international conventions, “such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Farmers and Other People Working in Rural Areas; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, as far as rural women are concerned, who advocate promoting and protecting the right to land with equality and equity,” if a basic right of the Charter of Human Rights, such as private property, is more than evidently violated.

Fourth, all this legislative effort is supposed to contribute to the implementation of Law 148 on Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security of May 14, 2022. And this objective, still unattained (and we fear that it will be another unsuccessful experience), is the one that requires modifying the policy of use and possession of the land and its legal framework.

The communists point out that the long-standing legal norms require an update corresponding to the existing problems for the transmission of land and its use and possession. But from the experience of other legal systems and reorderings, it has already been proven that not everything depends on legislative changes when they are only superficial. Food sovereignty and security in Cuba is a failure of the communist regime, no matter how you look at it.

Fifth, it seems that the results of the Temporary Working Group for the elaboration of the proposed land use and possession policy and its legal instrumentation have had some influence on the  Preliminary Draft. This Group has been behind the various measures that have been approved to boost agricultural production since October 2022, and which, as we know, have not yielded results, such as the famous 63 measures of the agricultural sector or the 93 measures for sugarcane.

Apparently, the work of this group has been accompanied by projects of international collaboration for strengthening policies for sustainable food security in Cuba and climate resilience in the agricultural ecosystems of Cuba, whose implementing agency is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which awarded Cuba 6 million dollars for the implementation of these projects. This has had little or no effect on the daily food situation for Cubans, as currently reported from the Island.

Last but not least, it is pointed out in the cited article that the regime allowed participation by representatives of agencies of the Central State Administration, the agricultural business system, associations, research institutes, academics, experts and agricultural producers in the creation of the Draft Law. These contributions were “weighted,” which means that the proposals coinciding with the official line were all approved, but those that were not were simply deleted.

We fear that this Draft will be yet another exercise of communist ideology, dominated by the fear of Castroism about private ownership of the land, and that it will end in failure without solving the problem of food. There have been too many experiments, and all have been unsuccessful. The people seem to be used to it. The question is, for how long?

Translated by Regina Anavy 
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.