Shortage of rice from the basic basket reaches Holguín with a one-month delay.

The management promised that a new shipment would be carried out soon, and this time it would include peas.

Camión de arroz en Holguín © Periódico Ahora
Rice truck in Holguin.Photo © Periódico Ahora

At the beginning of July, the residents of Holguín will receive the missing rice that the government owes them corresponding to the regulated basket for the month of June.

According to trade authorities in that province, the 2,360 tons needed to cover that debt arrived on the morning of last Friday, June 5th at the port of Vita, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre.

The official newspaper Ahora mentioned that in the unloading tasks of the demanded product, the help of transportation vehicles from the other eastern provinces and reinforcements from the central provinces was necessary.

"Vita is located 50 kilometers from Holguin, therefore, it is necessary to quickly mobilize all actors and have a lot of fuel available for the operation, despite its scarcity," said Rosell González Pérez, coordinator of Transportation for the provincial government.

The promise from the executives is that the unloading operation will be completed in three days (supposedly by this Sunday), because another ship, coming from Santiago de Cuba, is expected to arrive at that port in five days.

The new boat brings 2,800 tons; of those, 360 of peas, which will completely cover the June family basket and a part of the July one, assures the regime, which has not been able to fulfill its deliveries on time for the basic basket for months.

"The work will not stop regardless of whether it is Saturday or Sunday; for those of us who have this responsibility, there is nothing more like a Monday than a Sunday. We will not rest until Holguin families have rice on their plates," added González Pérez.

The mountain municipalities in Holguín will be the first to receive the product, so that distribution can continue in the other territories of the province.

The shortage of rice, a staple food on the Cuban table, has been one of the many hardships experienced by residents on the island in recent months.

Just a few days before the end of June, the Coordinator of Commerce and Services in Santiago de Cuba, Edelva Marín, announced that the distribution of the popular cereal to households in the eastern provinces of Cuba would begin, in statements made to the state-run Canal Caribe, as quoted by the Granma newspaper.

Since the beginning of the year, delays with the [food] basket have been a recurring issue among the population. The Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, tried to justify the situation last May on the official television program Mesa Redonda.

In his words, three or four years ago, the product was in the warehouses on the first days of each month, now it is necessary to "unload the ships, transport them to the provincial headquarters, then they are moved to the municipalities and then go to the network of warehouses. (...) It is very difficult to manage the times when you depend solely on imports."

In your opinion, the responsibility lies in the work of the ports, the distribution mechanisms, and even the weather; meanwhile, the population suffers from the decrease in quality, delays of several months in deliveries, the replacement of milk with other products, and delays in the distribution of food for vulnerable groups such as meat for children and pregnant women.

What do you think?

COMMENT

Filed under:


Do you have something to report? Write to CiberCuba:

editores@cibercuba.com +1 786 3965 689