The Cuban Council of Ministers approved on Saturday to take legislative initiative on a draft Law on the Organization of the Central State Administration that will reduce the number of organizations in that structure from 27 to 21, as reported by the official organ of the Communist Party, Granma, in its edition today.
The session was presided over by Miguel Díaz-Canel and conducted by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, who took the opportunity to openly acknowledge what citizens and economists have been denouncing for years: that the Cuban state apparatus is too large, inefficient, and bureaucratic.
Marrero acknowledges decades of bureaucratic hypertrophy
The prime minister justified the reform with a statement that amounts to an official acknowledgment of a structural failure that has accumulated over decades.
"A small country, a country with such a complex situation, cannot have such a large structure, so much bureaucracy, which makes processes inefficient, therefore requiring a different design," stated Marrero Cruz during the session, as reported by Canal Caribe in its broadcast this Saturday.
The head of government also acknowledged the initiative's limitations: "This is a first and good approach, but it is not something we will give up on studying further after we implement this."
He added, “This is an opportunity to reorganize, better utilize the existing human resources, and that is an element we have kept in mind.”
Matilla Correa: "It is not just a mere structural movement."
The proposal was presented by Andry Matilla Correa, dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Havana, who emphasized the scope that the regime intends to give to the reform.
"It is not just a mere structural movement, but rather the redesign of each of the Bodies of the Central Administration of the State," declared Matilla Correa, according to the broadcast by Canal Caribe.
The jurist detailed that the reform involves reviewing functions, structures, and the links between ministries, subordinate entities, and the state business system: "It is important to analyze the compliance and the necessary structure of the specific and general functions assigned to it. The second point is to redesign the dialogue between the central administrative structure and the subordinate attached structures and the business system."
Matilla Correa also acknowledged the complexity of the process: "What we should have no doubt about is that it is a complex process, but a necessary one."
An announcement that Díaz-Canel had already suggested in April
The reform did not come without notice. On April 18, Díaz-Canel announced that there would be less bureaucracy and fewer ministries in an interview given to RT during the V International Colloquium Homeland of Digital Communication held in Havana, promising changes before mid-2026.
What was once a generic announcement has now taken the form of a draft law: the reduction from 27 to 21 agencies involves the elimination or merging of six entities within the central apparatus of the State, although the regime has not specified which ones will disappear or how the adjustment will be carried out.
The economic context driving the reform
The initiative is part of the Government's Economic and Social Program for 2026, which, as of the end of the first quarter, reports 81 approved specific objectives: 32 implemented and 49 in progress, out of a total of 158 planned actions.
The economic outlook is bleak. The Minister of Economy and Planning, Joaquín Alonso Vázquez, reported that the year-on-year inflation rate at the end of March reached 13.42%, with agricultural market prices in the non-state sector rising by 31.9% only in Havana.
The difficulties in optimizing the Cuban state sector have been highlighted by analysts as an extremely complex task, given the level of centralization in the model.
The regime has also made progress in flexibilizing the management of state entities and in enforcing new regulations for business partnerships, although the tangible results of these measures remain limited.
The draft state reorganization bill will be presented to the National Assembly of People's Power in July 2026, along with the new Labor Code and the Housing Law. However, Cuba has a history of frequently announced structural reforms that are implemented slowly, which prompts caution in assessing their actual scope.
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