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An appointment for the Civil Registry (REC) in Matanzas can cost up to 700 Cuban pesos (CUP), which is paid to a man who handles the reservations.
The crisis in these offices of the Ministry of Justice (MINUS), due to the increase in demand and the lack of personnel and resources to assist the population, is causing discontent among Cubans.
“Since January 2021, we have requested a death certificate and a birth registration, and in two years we have not been able to complete all the documents to appoint a lawyer. You come and it’s the same: there is no connection, there are delays in delivery, or there were mistakes in the documents,” said Misleydis Viamonte to the state-run newspaper Girón.
That Matanzas media outlet assured that the public opinion is negative and little has been done to address a problem that, with the Law of Democratic Memory in Spain and the humanitarian parole of the United States, overwhelms the service.
Esnélida Garcés Espinosa and her son, Christopher Reyes, have been going to the office for 15 days to pick up a birth certificate, and “every time we come, they throw us around,” they say.
The digitization of MINJUS is not enough to meet the growing demand for document requests, issuing more than 50,000 documents monthly, a figure that exceeds those from previous years.
Félix Alberto González, provincial director of Justice, acknowledged that the demand exceeds the possibilities of work and regretted that the virtual system implemented by MINJUS for issuing electronic certifications has also become a problem.
"For example, December 30 was a Friday, and no work was done until January 4. The platform counted all those days, and people showed up at the Registries on the 3rd because they were informed about the collection," he said.
In the REC of Matanzas, things are also not done as citizens expect, and there are complaints that it opens either at eight or nine in the morning, with some days lacking connection to the central servers.
They also lack the facilities to accommodate those who crowd inside and around the building, and many miss having a bathroom to take care of their physiological needs.
The critical situation in Cuba regarding the request for bureaucratic procedures has also worsened due to the lack of stamped seals, which can have high prices in the informal market due to shortages at the offices of Correos de Cuba.
To alleviate the situation, the government authorized the issuance of official certificates after making the payment in cash or electronically for the stamped seals, although various citizens complain about the lack of consistency in the work of the institutions under MINJUS and the officials, who claim to be unaware of the measure.
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