Workers from the Commerce and Gastronomy company of the municipality of Manuel Tames, in Guantánamo, have been without their salaries for two months, acknowledged the station Radio Guantánamo while reporting on the operational and socioeconomic analysis meeting of the province.
The delay was discussed during the meeting led by Yoel Pérez García, the First Secretary of the Communist Party in Guantánamo, along with the main provincial and municipal authorities via audioconference.
The official statement only mentioned the existence of a "delay in salary payment" to the workers of that company, without specifying the reasons for the nonpayment or providing information on concrete measures to resolve the situation.
The case adds to other economic and social issues discussed at the meeting, including difficulties in water supply in various communities and the effectiveness of pension payments with contributions from the non-state sector.
The information released by the authorities did not specify when the payment of the overdue salaries to the workers in Commerce and Gastronomy in Manuel Tames will be resumed.
The case is the most recent expression of a liquidity crisis impacting the eastern province.
In July, authorities acknowledged that the banks in the province lacked sufficient cash to meet their operational needs and warned that they would impose penalties on state and private merchants who refuse to accept payments by electronic transfer.
For example, the Banco de Crédito y Comercio (Bandec) could only capture just over 35% of the nearly 15 million pesos it needs to operate daily.
Due to the incapacity of the banking system, the provincial government resorted to a solution that independent economists have described as haphazard, which is to mobilize 113 private businesses to handle cash payments for pensions for more than 3,000 retirees.
The provincial director of the Popular Savings Bank, Yaritza León Mustelier, described this participation as an act of "human interest in providing an important service to society," reported the official newspaper Venceremos.
The pattern of non-payment in the Commerce and Gastronomy sector is repeating in other provinces. A public complaint recorded in August alerted that employees in the same sector in Guáimaro, in the province of Camagüey, had gone almost six months without receiving their wages, despite the Provincial Bank having allocated 90 million pesos for those payments that never reached the workers.
Also in Camagüey, teachers from the mixed school Vicente Chávez in Vertientes reported in July that they had gone two months without pay. The only official response they received was "there is no money."
In July, the government approved an increase in the minimum wage from 2,100 to 3,210 pesos per month, but independent economists warn that this figure is laughable in light of a cost of living estimated at over 50,000 pesos per month per person.
Meanwhile, in Guantánamo, there are massive crowds in front of the Banco Popular de Ahorro, where citizens are trying to withdraw cash without success.
"Has ceased to be a banking difficulty and has become a social issue," acknowledged Venceremos when describing the situation in the province.
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