The official newspaper Escambray reveals the information in an article dedicated to the “intolerance” of the Communist Party for these cases
14ymedio, Madrid, May 27, 2024 — Alexis Fuentes de La Cruz, director of the Sancti Spíritus Municipal Commerce Company between May 2022 and July 2023, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for a corruption case. The news slips between the paragraphs of a text published this Monday by the official newspaper of the province, Escambray, entitled Double Discourse or the Yagruma Syndrome*. It vindicates the regime’s intolerance with this type of case – proclaimed by Miguel Díaz-Canel at the beginning of this year – whose greatest example is, they cite, the cause of the former minister of the former vice prime minister and former head of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández.
“There are those who—due to their double talk—suffer from what could be called ‘yagruma syndrome’, named for a plant whose leaves look two faces: dark green, on one side, and white, on the other. Incidentally, some of these pretenders have found themselves neck-deep in the mire of corruption.”
The MSME (Micro, Small, Medium-sized Enterprise) involved sold 42,000 units of a Pool brand soft drink to the group with a close expiration date. A specialist in Legal Advice and Assistance prepared a report warning of anomalies that had to be examined by the contracting and purchasing committee before carrying out the transaction, but Fuentes de La Cruz got rid of the document to avoid the loss of the 3,241,860 pesos that it would cost the company to stop selling 22,830 soft drinks.
Fuentes de La Cruz got rid of the document to avoid the loss of 3,241,860 pesos that it would cost the company to stop selling 22,830 soft drinks
In addition, he falsified two minutes of the aforementioned committee meeting notes to make it appear that the committee did meet to discuss the contract and presented the papers to the group to continue with the operation, all in order to hide his own irregularities.
The article highlights the fact that there were four of the company’s 12 units that marketed the product despite the fact that the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology indicated twice that the sale should be stopped. “In other words, these establishments continued selling the soft drink at their own expense and risk,” it emphasizes.
Escambray emphasizes that this is only one of the 13 cases of the same type that occurred in Sancti Spíritus, but that this one stands out because the convicted person himself, Fuentes de la Cruz, spoke out furiously against acts of corruption close to him that occurred months before.
The newspaper, specifically, notes having reported five cases of embezzlement in company units for which they required statements from the manager. “Today we have greater internal control and greater confrontation with crime, and corruption in our units and the controls we are carrying out are comprehensive and direct, without prior warning or notification,” the manager said at that time.
“Is there anything more similar to the popular saying: do what I say and not what I do?” reproaches Escambray, who also takes the opportunity to confront Gil Fernández
The media also addressed, in an investigative report, how the lack of control in some companies facilitated corruption, in response to which Fuentes denied indolence and vindicated the work carried out by his entity.
“Will there be anything more similar to the popular saying: do what I say and not what I do?” reproaches Escambray , who also takes the opportunity to confront the recently ousted Minister of the Economy Gil Fernández, whom it accuses of being a hypocrite.
“In the face of the simulators and their double discourse – no matter the level of the position they hold – the ethics of the Revolution are erected, exemplified in two paradigms: Fidel and Che,” declares the article.
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