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A Cuban self-employed worker revealed that inspectors from the People's Power openly acknowledged to him that his business had no violations, but they were obliged to fine him because "they are required to come back with results," according to a report published on the page "Con el otro filo" on Facebook.
The sanction finally imposed on the owner was for a reason he himself deemed absurd: a saleswoman had painted nails. The man explained that all the products in his establishment were factory-packaged with their original wrapping, but "his concern was not accepted, so a fine must be imposed."
Before drawing up the record, the inspectors reportedly demanded a "receipt" for products intended for personal use. According to the account, the bill was no less than 7,000 pesos per person —and there were two officials— and it was they themselves who chose the most expensive items when the owner attempted to offer them more economical options.
The complaint also highlights a new requirement impacting the food service businesses: to contract with Servicios Comunales for commercial waste collection, under the argument that the waste from a café cannot be mixed with household waste. “Don’t even dream about having them pick up your garbage... It’s just to have the contract and pay the communal services, which also wants its cut of the business,” warns the publication.
The mechanism explaining this dynamic was revealed in December 2024, when Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced before the National Assembly that, starting in January 2025, inspectors would be paid based on their results, meaning according to the number and amount of fines they could impose. Their base salaries ranged from 5,810 to 7,830 pesos per month, equivalent to between 17 and 24 dollars in the informal market.
This incentive system turns the fine into a goal in itself, rather than a consequence of a real violation. Official figures confirm this: in 2024, there were 606,303 inspections, with 371,333 fines imposed totaling over 980 million pesos, and the government deployed 7,000 inspectors to oversee the private sector.
Arbitrary sanctions have multiplied in recent weeks. On April 20, an 81-year-old man in Mayarí, Holguín, was fined 21,000 pesos for selling matchboxes and glue without permission, despite having applied for a license over a year earlier without receiving a response. On April 23, a vendor in Centro Habana received two fines totaling 46,000 pesos for selling bowls.
The pattern is repeated on a national scale. Only in the third week of February 2026, there were 17,000 fines amounting to 65 million pesos across the country. Between the end of March and the beginning of April, the Municipal Assembly of the People's Power in Guantánamo conducted 380 inspections with 132 inspectors, detecting violations in 86% of the businesses and imposing 326 fines totaling almost two million pesos.
The phenomenon of associated corruption is not new either. In April of this year, a fake inspector was captured in Havana who was defrauding private business owners through bribes disguised as official inspections, illustrating the extent to which the system has normalized extortion as an everyday practice.
"Everyone in Cuba has a neighbor, a relative, or is a direct victim of these continuous and daily assaults with a wooden board and pen," the complaint concludes, ending with a blunt statement: "Our government is very subtly intent on swindling and stealing from the private sector."
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