Esteban Lazo Hernández, President of the National Assembly of People's Power, acknowledged this Thursday that the laws approved by the Cuban parliament will only have real effect if the citizens understand them and get involved in their implementation.
"All these laws, everything we are approving here... will work if the people understand them. That is to say, if they come and everyone participates," Lazo stated before the deputies gathered in the Seventh Ordinary Session of the X Legislature.
The statement, in the context of the debate on the new Law on the Organization of the Central Administration of the State, came after the approval of a regulation that reduces the ministerial structure from 27 to 21 entities, equivalent to 20 ministries and the Central Bank of Cuba, repealing Decree-Law 67 of 1983, which governed the governmental apparatus for over four decades.
Lazo also demanded that each law include a subsequent dissemination plan.
"It is logical that all of this must have a subsequent communication plan, with each of these laws reaching the neighborhoods, reaching every one of the places," he stated, implicitly acknowledging that the population does not necessarily know or understand the regulations approved by the regime.
The most controversial point of the debate was the fragmentation of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (CITMA), which generated more than 50 posts on social media and numerous reactions from researchers and scientists.
The scientific competencies of CITMA will be transferred to a new Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, while the environmental competencies will be integrated into a Ministry of Environment, Habitat, and Housing, dismantling a structure that Fidel Castro himself promoted in the 1990s.
A deputy argued in the debate that "maintaining science, technology, innovation, and the environment all under the same Ministry in Cuba has always been fundamental, a strategic line to enhance that integration, to boost synergy, and to avoid the fragmentation of policies."
Other approved mergers include the integration of the Ministries of Economy and Planning with Finance and Prices, as well as the unification of the Ministries of Agriculture and Food.
In the debate, the need to create a national entity for prevention and social care was also raised, with a deadline of 180 days, due to the shortcomings of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in preventive matters.
A deputy warned about social deterioration: "There is a loss of values that is creating much more work. We must be more preventive because we already know, it happens with drugs... drug prevention is necessary. As long as there is a market, there will be drugs."
The session held on July 29 and 30 approved a total of five legal norms: the Labor Code, the Housing Law, the Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, the Law on the Organization of the Central State Administration, and the Law on the System of Personal Identity and Residence.
Moreover, the Assembly repealed Law 183, which had shortened the term of municipal delegates to four years, thereby postponing the general elections until 2027.
The legislative package is part of the 176 transformations approved by the Communist Party of Cuba in June 2026, presented by Díaz-Canel as a plan to reduce bureaucracy, although critics point out that the changes do not alter the nature of the system.
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