Cuban authorities announced this Saturday the addition of 20 repaired buses with components from a Chinese donation to the transportation system in Havana, in an operation presented as a gift for the anniversary of the 1959 revolution's triumph.
The vehicles, Yutong ZK 6118 models, were assembled at the Caisa plant (Evelio Prieto Guillama Bus Production Company), located in Guanajay, in the province of Artemisa, and will be primarily used at the terminal in the capital municipality of Santiago de las Vegas.
According to a report from the newspaper Trabajadores, the recovery of these units will save more than 2.5 million dollars by avoiding the purchase of new buses. The authorities described the work as a "labor achievement," although the components used come from a donation from China.
The 20 vehicles are part of a program aimed at recovering 100 buses, consisting of 60 rigid and 40 articulateds, using parts included in 40 containers donated by Beijing, valued at around 10 million dollars. The shipment arrived in August 2025, and the initial plan was to have the first 20 units ready before the end of that year.
However, prolonged blackouts and fuel shortages delayed the schedule by almost a year. Additionally, authorities acknowledged that they are still assessing how to stabilize the routes with the recovered vehicles, so their delivery does not mean that all will start serving immediately.
The announcement contrasts with the deterioration of national transportation. In October, the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila, acknowledged to the news agency Reuters that the daily departures of interprovincial buses from Havana dropped from 419 in 2025 to just 11 in 2026, a decline of 97.4%. National routes decreased from more than 100 to only 21 during the same period.
In June, the Ministry of Transportation had already announced a cut that reduced departures from the capital to the provincial capitals to three per week.
The news did not generate much enthusiasm among social media users either. In the Facebook group Las Guaguas Cubanas y el Transporte en Cuba, several citizens questioned the usefulness of adding buses if there is not enough fuel to keep them running.
"And what is the purpose of giving the 20 cars to Stgo? Since there's never any oil to work with anyway, and they already removed 70 routes that used to exist," commented a user.
Another warned about the wear and tear that passenger demand will entail. "It’s a bus for a million people across two trips; if it has only one shoe, it will wear out more quickly than if they are alternated," he wrote.
"Note the date when they were rebuilt, and you'll see how quickly they are dismantled again," pointed out another commentator, while a fourth summarized his skepticism with a reference to the model of state ownership. "As long as they keep saying it belongs to everyone (Social ownership), it won't last at all... let me know how long it lasts."
Fuel continues to be one of the main obstacles to the recovery of transportation, along with the liquidity crisis and the government's debt situation, which hinders access to new credit, among other factors.
While the authorities celebrate the repair of 20 buses, using private alternatives can cost up to 5,000 pesos a month in some areas. This amount exceeds the minimum wage of 3,210 pesos, a gap that leaves many workers unable to afford the cost of their daily commutes.
The independent writer and journalist Frank Correa, resident in Jaimanitas, Havana, recently reported that his daughter has been unable to attend classes for a week at the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Havana because the daily round-trip transportation costs 2,000 Cuban pesos, not including food.
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