CUBA: BELT-TIGHTENING TIME FOR THE BUREAUCRATS

By Leonardo Padura Reprint | | Print |

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HAVANA, Jan 7 2009 (IPS) - For a number of years, and with increasing frequency, the historic leaders of the Cuban revolution (first Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul, currently president) have expressed concern that the major danger facing the country’s political system and the revolutionary process that they began half a century ago is disintegration from within.

More than the increasingly retrograde US embargo or other hostile attitudes from perennial enemies, the old leaders fear the possible "self-destruction" of the revolution (at least as they conceive it). For this reason, in celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Rebel Army’s victory over the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista, Raul Castro has asked himself -with, I imagine, a certain sadness- what guarantee there is that Cuba will not suffer a disaster like the implosion that destroyed the Soviet Union.

While Fidel saw corruption as the primary internal enemy, Raul seems to have ventured a bit further in his search for its sources, which are often to be found in the endemic disfunction of the socialist state apparatus and the modes of survival (far more than mere survival, in fact) practised, especially by the state bureaucracy.

In late December, Raul Castro made one of the most astonishing revelations heard in Cuba in recent years. Speaking of the well-trodden subject of the existing distortions in the Cuban salary system (the first and essential distortion is this: that almost no Cuban can live on the state salary alone, which has generated myriad modes of stealing and workplace indolence), the president expressed the need to eliminate what have been labelled "improper perks" and "excessive subsidies" which, of course, are not related to constitutional rights, like the right to public health care, education, and social security or sports or cultural consumption.

These "improper perks" and "excessive subsidies" came to a whopping 60 million dollars for 2008 alone. Moreover, this remarkable sum of money -especially remarkable for Cuba- was spent after all the budget cuts required to weather the grim decade of the 1990s and the beginning of the elimination of many perks and trimmed subsidies, particularly those that had benefitted the population as a whole, which meant higher prices for cultural events, public transportation, medicine, and electricity.

It is worth mentioning a few of these (very improper) perks: for example, the "vacations" enjoyed for years by outstanding workers (the vanguard) and sports stars and especially the "packages" which a wide swath of bureaucrats were treated to once and even a number of times a year, vacationing in special hotels and villas, enjoying goods and services for free or for "symbolic" prices.

Castro also alluded to the possibility that certain social strata, more or less economically and politically powerful, take advantage of special foods offers as well as -though it was not mentioned- the

use of automobiles and petrol, mobile phones, and other perks unimaginable for the rest of the population but proffered to the privileged who exercise a certain level of decision-making or responsibility in the country.

It is clear that the solution to eliminating this waste does not lie in the introduction of egalitarian measures. The head of a factory does not have to live just like the worker. However, the regulation of privileges must be related to salary and there must be careful supervision of perks by an official watchdog.

How many homes could have been built with that 60 million dollars, in a country with more than half a million people who lack housing? How many decrepit hospital rooms, unpaved roads, drinking water pipes, or sewer components could be repaired with these funds? And of course there is the other side of the problem: How will bureaucrats react to the reduction of their privileges and greater control over their distribution?

Although the changes announced by Raul Castro have not yet been implemented (or at least not those that might set in motion a revitalisation of a social and economic structure in need of a shake-up), there are certain important stirrings in the recesses of Cuban politics. How many people will be affected by the elimination of subsidies? How many will complain when they see their privileges trimmed? Is this the real beginning of a change in the conceptual underpinning of the politics and economy of Cuba? 2009 should bring answers to these questions, which may alleviate the tensions that too many Cubans live under, and cool the fever for flight that burns in so many others. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Padura is a Cuban writer and journalist. His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and his most recent work, La neblina del ayer, won the Hammett Prize for the best crime novel written in Spanish for 2005.