In the midst of an economic crisis and with public services on the brink of collapse, the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, once again called for internal discipline as a remedy to curb the rise of crimes and irregularities within the state apparatus.
During a recent meeting of the Crime Prevention and Response Department of the Council of Ministers, Marrero called to "raise the expectations of the management" and strengthen the "culture of self-control" in business and budgetary entities, while acknowledging an alarming fact that in 2024 over 7,700 violations were detected during control actions across the country.
The meeting, which also included the presence of Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa, focused on an uncomfortable truth: that the lack of control, organizational negligence, and internal complicity are key elements in most of the detected crimes.
Of the total infractions, 56% were linked to failures attributable to internal management, meaning issues in the organization, direction, and supervision of the entities, said Darío Delgado Cura, head of the aforementioned Department.
“The crime is often committed because the insider colludes with the outsider, or because the system has vulnerabilities that are exploited,” acknowledged Delgado Cura. An admission that calls into question the effectiveness of the so-called revolutionary control.
The head of government insisted that agencies must design security and protection plans "in line with the times we are living in", referring to the critical situation in the country. However, the call for more controls and plans contrasts with a system that, year after year, reveals deep structural cracks.
The evaluations revealed non-compliance with basic safety principles, breakdown of internal control, and serious failures in the implementation of the Worker Guard. All of this occurs in a context where scarcity and social discontent increasingly make state resources more vulnerable.
During the meeting, representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Mines presented alarming figures regarding the increase in extraordinary incidents related to fuel theft, especially at Cimex service stations and sales points for liquefied gas cylinders from Cupet.
The illegal sale of these resources —which are becoming increasingly scarce for the population— has turned into a booming business, under the complicity or indifference of those who should be preventing it.
Marrero acknowledged that "more rigor and systematicity" is needed to detect these violations and reduce vulnerabilities in control systems, although there was no mention of sanctioned individuals, concrete measures, or effective prevention outcomes.
While the top leaders insist on the need for "self-control," "demand," and "awareness," crimes and losses of state resources continue to accumulate without addressing the structural causes of the problem: miserable wages, lack of incentives, institutionalized corruption, and a system that rewards obedience more than efficiency.
The official narrative remains. The leaders must be more demanding, the workers more aware, and the resources of the people must be protected. But in a country where there is less and less to protect and more and more to survive, the culture of control seems more like a symbolic gesture than a real solution.
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