The official newspaper Girón published an article this Friday highlighting administrative corruption in the Cuban State as the main obstacle preventing the 176 economic and social transformations approved in June from transforming the island's economy.
The text A Bridge Over the Turbulent River (III), written by journalist Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez, is the third installment of a series born in the wake of the package of reforms approved by the National Assembly of People's Power in an extraordinary session on June 19.
The article warned that the greatest danger of opening up to private capital is not the entrepreneur, but "the state official who sees in the new regulation an opportunity for personal gain disguised as modernization."
He also described administrative corruption as "that hydra we have been battling for decades with insufficient results," and that "finds its most fertile breeding ground at the intersection of the public and private sectors."
To safeguard the reforms, the text proposed concrete measures such as mandatory public bidding for all partnerships between state-owned and private companies, without any exceptions.
"None of the strategic alliances between a state-owned company and a private entity - I repeat, none - can be granted through direct agreements, a phone call, or long-standing friendships," he emphasized.
The text also demanded "exemplary" criminal proceedings against officials who use their positions to illegally enrich themselves, with firm and proportionate sentences.
He also called for the asset declarations, which "currently exist on paper," to be thoroughly verified and made public for those in economic decision-making positions.
At the same time, the article warned that bureaucratic excess is, in itself, a source of corruption. "When an entrepreneur has to wait for 20 signatures and 12 months to obtain a permit, transparency becomes torture, and control turns into influence peddling," he asserted.
Girón also proposed the creation of a citizen observatory for public-private partnerships in Matanzas, composed of professors and students from the University of Matanzas, journalists, and representatives from local councils, holding moral authority but without executive power.
This publication is part of an internal debate within the regime that has escalated since the approval of the reforms. On June 27, the official television journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso called for sanctions against officials who undermine the measures, and shared the first installment of this same series from Girón, which documented how provincial leaders in Matanzas viewed the advancement of the private sector as a threat.
On July 22, Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, publicly acknowledged the existence of corruption allegations in the Cuban electrical sector, marking yet another indication that the issue permeates various areas of the state apparatus.
From outside the system, independent analysts had anticipated this risk. The organization Food Monitor Program warned about the danger of a "crony capitalism" in the Cuban reforms, where state assets would be transferred to private hands connected to the power without transparent bids.
The economist Pedro Monreal described the package as "a monster, perhaps more of a deformed hybrid", noting that the verb "to allow" appears 29 times in the text, which reflects a logic of revocable concession rather than a recognized right.
Transparency International ranked Cuba in 84th place out of 182 countries in its 2026 Corruption Perceptions Index, scoring 40 points out of 100 and showing a downward trend since 2020, a fact that highlights the magnitude of the challenge that the government itself now acknowledges in its pages.
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