CUBA: Minister Sacked in Corruption Case

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Mar 26 2001 (IPS) - The Cuban government publicly acknowledged a case of corruption in Cuba’s merchant marine, which led to the removal of a cabinet minister.

A government communique issued over the weekend acknowledged a case of corruption in the merchant marine, and announced that the minister of the Fishing Industry, Orlando Rodríguez Romay, had been dismissed due to a “lack of control and oversight of the attitude and way of life” of his subordinates.

Without providing names, the communique confirmed that several officials in charge of business matters in the ministry had accepted commissions and “gifts”.

The “appropriate measures” were taken in the case, which involved “isolated incidents” in which neither Rodríguez Romay nor any of the ministry’s other senior officials were involved, according to the government.

The communique made no reference to allegations by diplomats and business sources that the minister’s brother, Raúl Rodríguez Romay – a former director of Cuba’s Association of Shipping Companies, which answers to the ministry of the Fishing Industry – was implicated in the case.

Raúl Rodríguez Romay has been in prison since December.

According to those sources, the investigation also pointed to the involvement of another of the sacked minister’s brothers, Tony Rodríguez, a former director of Cuba’s oil transport company.

However, the business sources said there was very little corruption in the area of foreign trade, while authorities argued that the “socialist ethic” should not tolerate one single case.

However, the media – a state monopoly in Cuba – have expressed concern over the rise in theft and misappropriation of public funds that accompanied the economic crisis of the 1990s.

The issue figures on the Communist Party’s agenda of meetings, and in the discussions scheduled in the run-up to the forthcoming congress of the Cuban Central Workers union.

In one of the preparatory reports for its congress, the central trade union warned that there were workers who were drifting towards “corruption and crime, towards the deformed and irresponsible mentality of getting their needs met and satisfying their aspirations at any price.”

The document also referred to those who took advantage of “certain occupations for their personal benefit, at the expense of state resources, or by cheating consumers and clients.”

Citing statistics provided at a meeting of the Communist Party in Havana, a radio station reported last year that three million pesos (over 150,000 dollars) had been misappropriated in the capital in the space of 12 months.

The National Audit Office, meanwhile, said 60 percent of the bodies inspected last year suffered “shortcomings” or flaws in their systems of oversight and control.

A “lack of economic controls,” the low purchasing power of wages and the scarcity of products were mentioned by the Office as the main factors contributing to crimes against state assets.

Cuba’s laws punish bribery with sentences of eight to 20 years. Also punishable by prison are the trafficking of influences, malversation and diversion of funds.

A code of ethics approved in 1996 stipulates that those who take up posts in the public administration must not receive “benefits, or benefit others by reason of kinship or friendship, or in exchange for other favours.”

The government hopes to keep corruption in check while continuing to open the economy to foreign capital and forging ties with a world where “vice and corruption are not exceptions,” Vice-President Carlos Lage said when presenting the code of ethics.

The public official “is a servant of the people, not a holder of powers to be exercised for personal benefit,” Lage said on that occasion.

The code of ethics was signed by leaders at all levels, starting with President Fidel Castro himself.

One of the most notorious cases of corruption among senior officials was that of the former president of the Cuban Institute of Civil Aeronautics Luis Orlando Domínguez, who was sentenced to prison in 1987 after being found to have excessively high living standards.

In mid-1989, the trial of a group of military officers accused of corruption and drug trafficking ended in capital punishment for General Arnaldo Ochoa, Colonel Antonio de la Guardia, Captain Jorge Martínez and Major Amado Padrón.

In 1992, Carlos Aldana, the head of the Communist Party’s Ideological Department, was demoted and sent to work outside of Havana after he was found to be using his post for his own personal benefit.