Comptroller General's Office joins the witch hunt in Commerce and Gastronomy of Havana (II)

In recent days, a series of forensic audits attempted to revive a large community of violations and irregularities in the economic and financial control of some entities belonging to the branch of Commerce and Gastronomy of the Cuban capital as an alternative and pretext to intensify surveillance over the meager resources that the communist State allocates for the consumption of the population.

The process was undertaken with relish by the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR), the Internal Audit System, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) and the investigative bodies of the Ministry of the Interior, who placed it in the red dot of their collimator to units such as the provincial companies of Food Processing, Havana Gastronomy, the Food Business Group, the Parallel Market Wholesale Company and the Tobacco, Cigars and Matches Company, among others.

According to a report published in the newspaper Granma, at the end of the control actions “the internal control system implemented was classified as poor and administrative, direct and collateral responsibilities were identified, which led to the application of 383 disciplinary measures. 95 percent focused on definitive removals from office (9.6%), definitive separations from the entity (42%) and definitive separations from the sector (44%)… and the other 5 percent, what measures did they deserve?

Along with the illicit appropriation of large sums of money, the auditors detected falsifications of bank slips to mask the theft of financial resources from sales, including products released at differentiated prices for the population destined for the regulated family basket.

The results of the audits were presented to the directors of the Ministry of Internal Trade (Mincin), to the provincial and municipal governments, making the offenders available to the Prosecutor's Office and the Minint. In the trials, 203 people were found guilty of crimes of embezzlement, bribery, falsification of documents, theft and damage to documents and other objects in official custody, as well as violation of official seals.

As expected, no mention was made of allocating a new investment project to repair the productive and service units, remodel or renovate well-known gastronomy centers in Havana, revitalize the sense of belonging for a profession of service and delivery that He made his employees proud of their social position, although their salary depended more on the circumstantial results of the sale.

What the press does report without delay and with an exemplary tone is that, as a result of the criminal proceedings to which the accused were subjected, “sanctions between two and 22 years of deprivation of liberty were imposed, in accordance with the responsibility for the events.” that were proven”, “corrective measures necessary to restore order and prevent the repetition of such events.”

For the ruling leadership, without truly edifying analyses, the most important thing is to repeat the same formulas that have made inoperative a system that, although based on vaunted social justice, has only demonstrated its unsustainability and inefficiency, pushing those it claims to protect. to the clutches of the unscrupulous reseller and the speculator, those who constantly reinvent themselves and always find the best way to take advantage of precariousness and scarcity.

However, we must understand that "the adequate implementation of the internal control system supported by the ethical actions of managers and workers is essential, which will allow the situation to be reversed and progress along the path of efficiency and quality of services in this sector."