Granting of Subsidies: a War Against Irregularities

However, the pace of the construction work is not in accordance with the great amount of resources assigned, and constructions have hardly begun in other cases

Since 2012, the granting of subsidies for housing construction, repair or maintenance through their own effort has borne an important weight in the policy for providing equal opportunities allowing that nobody be unprotected, making the collective solidarity effective, organized by the State.

Thus, The Council of Ministers agreed on May, 2013 to expand the measure currently in force just with the purpose of benefiting a greater number of people. A way to face up to the critical housing situation in Cuba, and to fulfill one of the economic and social guidelines approved in 2010 in the Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party.

And, over these years, tens of thousands of Cuban families have benefitted from subsidies granted by local governments for improving their housing conditions damaged in many cases by natural disasters or other severe affectations.

Without any doubt, we are facing an honorable and just program, one of the many developed by the Revolution in favor of the most vulnerable people for whom the Revolution has devoted millions of pesos to finance the free sale of building materials for the population.

However, this program hasn’t been well-development in all territories. For instance, and specifically in Havana, the inadequacies that hinder the State’s will have been expressed at different times and places, like the lack of a systematic, comprehensive way and the opportune conciliation, which have a bearing on rhythms of execution of the work which are not in correspondence with the great amount of resources assigned.

Thus, slowness, superficiality and unwillingness in granting a subsidy to a family, lost files, evasive and justifiable answers by the corresponding entities, the immobilized of financing, the lack of the accompaniment by the technicians from Planificación Física (Physical Planning) –before the Housing Municipal Investment Units- to the process in the People’s Councils, are some of the complaints that the population, and inspections made to this prioritized program, have been reported in the meetings of the People’s Power.

In addition, the serious problems with the commercialization of the building materials assigned to the cases approved, have caused many disturbances because of the transitory shortage of cement, blocks, doors, windows, roofing and water and sanitary pipes, which have hindered in many cases going forward in a coherent and organized way.

Thus, the complaint of a neighbor of the 10 de Octubre municipality, was published in the Readers Box of the of the Tribuna de La Habana weekly newspaper, in its Sunday edition on November 8, 2015.

The reader in question Nuria Castro López has been going to the Government of her municipality on Thursdays, the day for the People’s attention regarding subsides, and she has been so unlucky that she has never been seen by the person in charge of subsides.

A Subsidy with Tendency to Suicide, that is the title of this case, which was not the only one occurring in these years. There are many examples about this situation.

The municipal and provincial assemblies of the People’s Power in Havana, have devoted several working sessions to this matter, and delegates have knowledge about events of corruption where the persons responsible for that, have to appear before the judges. In addition, the advances and fault were assessed and they are looking at a definitive solution for these faults.

During the Tenth National Verification for the Internal Control that was held in November and the first days of December, 2015 by the General Finance Office of the Republic of Cuba, this program was again the object of supervision because of its importance, high sensitivity and repercussions for the lives of tens of thousands of families.

In this regard, the Deputy Comptroller Alina Vicente said that the granting of subsides had a three-year follow up, mainly, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, where breakdowns have been observed in the sale of building materials in the area affected by hurricane Sandy.

The journalist Jesús Arencibia from Juventud Rebelde commented on some of the many events that show irregularities in this policy, and which have been published in the Acuse de recibo (Receipt Acknowledge) section, and he has warned about another phenomenon that is well recognized: the lack of a strategy for communicating and the people’s control –transparent, wide, opportune- that allows these social processes head toward the shared conscience which recognizes that justice has been served.