Council of Ministers confirms the worsening of the economic crisis in Cuba

Theeconomic crisis in Cuba has been treated with different euphemisms over the years. An example of these are the monthly meetings of the Council of Ministers, in which the news is not at all encouraging for the inhabitants of the island.

In the most recent of these meetings, held to “check” what the authorities did during the month of April, the Cuban Prime MinisterManuel Marrero Cruz He assured that “in the midst of the economic difficulties that the country is going through,” “it is true that the best levels of production or performance cannot be achieved, but it is possible to move forward if we exploit collective intelligence to the maximum.”

A possibility that, although they state otherwise, is a chimera in the face of a scenario plagued by scarcity, discontent and no immediate improvement.

Precisely, the Cuban economistPedro Monreal dedicated himself, through his account on the social network Twitter (currently known asGranma.

Monreal begins by saying that the “official information on the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers of Cuba confirms the worsening of the economic crisis, the lack of effective policies, the prevalence of rhetoric over realism, and an outdated vision of the agricultural sector.” .

For his assertion, he uses the data presented in the report and uses the appropriate words to describe each of the facts, an issue that the official Cuban bureaucratic and journalistic language lacks.

“What has been called the ‘unfavorable outlook’ for the 1st quarter, meaning the worsening of the crisis, simply does not support the official litany about ‘correcting distortions and re-boosting the economy during the year 2024,’” Monreal continued.

For the first four months of the year, “more than 300 companies record losses in strategic sectors, while the depreciation of the Cuban peso persists due to the informal exchange rate and, consequently, the increase in prices," says the report published inGranma.

This was one of the main reasons why, according to the government,implemented some economic measures, which have worsened a situation that was already becoming worrying.

Derived from this, “economic thinkers” are already forced to “an early ‘comprehensive review of theProjections and approved action plan’, things that have never been explained in detail, evidencing an early failure of the 2024 centralized planning exercise,” Monreal advances.

He also exposed the government's lack of vision to address the cases of beggars and people who spend the night on the streets due to the lack of housing and income that would allow them to cover their daily expenses.

"The press release about the meeting of the Council of Ministers indicates how alienated the government seems to be with respect to social reality when it is reported that there are only about 330,000 vulnerable people. Doesn't anyone understand what poverty is?" he clarified.

Finally, he showed his concern in relation to agriculture, saying that in this new meeting the ministers and others in charge of Cuban economic policy were explicit “about the obtuse vision of their agricultural program: ignorance about the functioning of economic calculation in markets and obstinacy - without evidence - regarding the 'superiority' of state ownership of land."

Last month, during the meeting corresponding to March, the Cuban ministers recognized that the new fuel prices,entered into force on March 1, no “have achieved the expected effect”, especially in relation to the offer offered by private carriers.

In the evaluation made by the senior Cuban leaders, stationed in one of the rooms of the Palace of the Revolution, the first vice minister of Economy and Planning,Mildrey Granadillo de la Torre, assured that prices have continued to increase with regard to transportation for the population, blaming this increase on private means.

Also,The Cuban Prime Minister himself pointed out that the current situation in Cuba is complex and assured that for the leaders "the fight is tough."

"The fight is tough and to defeat it you need to go at a firm pace, with your head held high," said Marrero.

"If we do not start by identifying the things that we have wrong, the things that work poorly and we look for a solution, we will stop, we will not move forward, and we will continue doing a little more of the same," he stated.