Havana market administrator arrested for missing almost 1,300 pounds of potatoes

The market managerYaya, located on 9th Street, in Vedado, near Maternidad de Línea, in Havana, has been detained by amissing almost 1,300 pounds of potatoes. This was reported on its Facebook wall by the Plaza de la Revolución Board of Directors, assuring that when it was verified in the invoices that the shipment had arrived complete, the presence of the PNR was requested and the person responsible was transferred to the Police Station of Zapata. In this way, they insist, they demonstrate their "zero tolerance for irregularities and indiscipline."

The alert was raised when the president of the Rampa Popular Council, Pedro Lizardo Garcés Escalona, received several calls from customers at the La Yaya market who had run out of potatoes. It was then that he went there and called the inspection, which finally verified that the embezzlement had left 431 people without products even though the product had arrived complete, as stated in the official documentation that is signed in these cases.

"Being sure that there were violations," the Popular Council asked that representatives of the Municipal Inspection Directorate appear there. These were the ones who detected a shortage of:£1,293.79, corresponding to 431 clients, which could not be justified.

Given this situation, the presence of the Police was required, which proceeded to arrest the administrator of La Yaya and transfer him to the Zapata and C Station, also in Vedado, to be subjected to "the corresponding investigative process."

The prominent fan of the Rampa Popular Council, who says her name is Eva Ginebra Carril, reacted to the news by pointing out that "young people pass by her house with sacks of potatoes at 250 CUP per pound and with strings of garlic and onion at 2,000 CUP." He also took the opportunity to denounce the sale of products at the doors of the Tulipán market, close to the Ministry of Agriculture without the minister having appeared there. In addition, he proposed building an army of inspectors who, in his opinion, should be paid a percentage of all the fines they issue so that they do not become corrupt. That, in his opinion, is the solution to the shortage.

Like this one, dozens more comments poured in, giving addresses of other markets in the Plaza municipality, where situations similar to the one detected in La Yaya are also allegedly recorded.

In January of last year, the regime raised the price of potatoes to 11 pesos per pound, almost double what it was worth in 2022. and eleven times more expensive than what it cost in 2021 (1 peso per pound). According to what the Official Gazette of Cuba published at that time, this product would be paid in the field at just over 19,200 pesos per ton, if it were national seeds. In the case of imported seeds, the price dropped to 15,174 pesos per ton. The rise was attributed to storage and cultivation costs.

In March of last year, potatoes were sold in state markets in Villa Clara, due to the high percentage of rot. which was occurring due to product conservation problems. At that time it was put on sale at a much higher price than the officially established price. According to the official press, the sale at 20 pesos per pound was justified by the expenses generated by preserving it in refrigerators.

"It goes through another process, it is not direct from the field to the consumer, but its cost is much higher as it is transported and stored in the refrigerator, and manipulated and transported again," stressed the deputy delegate of Agriculture in Villa Clara, José Luis. Valladares Santana.

At the beginning of this month of March, after the arrest for corruption of the former Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, guru of the economic 'organization' of the Island, was made public, the rulerMiguel Díaz-Canel announced a crusade against the lack of exemplarity of the Communist Party cadres. According to what she said at the closing of the Congress of the Federation of Cuban Women, under her mandate there will be "no tolerance for lack of ethics."

In February, the Minister of Industry, Manuel Sobrino, was dismissed, and this month of March tooRafael Ramón Santiesteban, who had been president of the Small Farmers Association for ten years, was struck down. Also in Januarytwo vice ministers of culture were dismissed in what today is clearly seen as the beginning of the crisis of the Díaz-Canel Government.