Betsy Díaz Velázquez, Minister of Internal Trade of Cuba, stated that in the country "we depend entirely on imported products", referring to the shortages in the rationed products sold to the population, and acknowledged setbacks in distribution as in past years.
Díaz Velázquez, who was brought to the Mesa Redonda program to provide statements about the distribution of the regulated family basket, did not offer many encouraging news to consumers.
Regarding the opinions of the Cuban population about the presence of rationed products amid a crisis in food acquisition, the Minister stated that the process is slow.
"We had six ships in operations in different ports of the country. They need to be unloaded and then transported to the provinces, sometimes there are cabotages to certain territories. They are transported to the municipalities, and then to the warehouses," he explained, also pointing out the impact of the fuel shortage in the country.
It is relevant how the distribution of rationed food is not carried out in the same way in the different provinces of the country.
The situation is not the same in all provinces. We have already finished the April rice, and when we move on to May's, there are provinces like Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, and Villa Clara that have already completed the distribution for that month. However, the same is not happening in other provinces like Pinar del Río, Artemisa, Mayabeque, La Habana, and Matanzas, which have not finished yet, although they have the product. They are in a distribution process that will still take a few more days," he pointed out.
He revealed that the current energy crisis also affects the distribution process. "It must be said that carriers from various agencies and entities, from agriculture, from Azcuba, private carriers... But there are days when there is no fuel. Sometimes, the lack of electricity affects processes such as weighing, billing."
The minister acknowledged that for many years, "up until 2020 or 2021, on the first day the product was in the warehouse, and we have lost that. We lost inventory, coverage, we are dependent on imports."
But the Minister's justifications for the late arrival of regulated food in Cuba, or the lack of it, are not usually a new issue.
Last October, the official justified the lack of peas in Cuban warehouses due to the weather in Canada.
"We were in a period, from January to May, when the rivers in Canada freeze and they cannot export. These are dynamics that the population is not aware of and that forces us to substitute with beans or peas," he said on the program Mesa Redonda.
His intervention became the subject of memes on social media, where Cubans mocked his "reasoning."
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