“All consumers are informed that in January it will be dispatched with the same notebook from the year 2022. Take care of it!”. Posts like thiswritten precariously on a piece of cardboard and badly hung on the doors, have appeared in the last week in numerous Cuban wineries.
They are the only indication of something that is repeating itself: the ration market booklets, which are normally distributed in December to begin to be used in January, have not been printed.
The Ministry of Domestic Trade has confirmed it this Thursday through its Facebook account. In a statementin which it ensures that “the distribution of the regulated family basket corresponding to the month of January is guaranteed according to the current per capita” (sic), it strains that “there are effects with the timely availability of the supply control notebooks for 2023 Therefore, in six provinces and partially in three, it has not finished making it”.
For this reason, the text continues, “the products corresponding to the January quota will be temporarily noted in the 2022 notebook, for which a procedure was issued.”
“For sure beyond January or February, there is no date yet”
As verified by this newspaper in various establishments, the phenomenon is occurring in Havana, in the municipalities of Cerro, Centro Habana and Plaza de la Revolución. “There are problems to have the ones for next year and they are going to have to continue using the current ones,” they explained by telephone. “For sure beyond January or February, no date yet.”
The only neighborhood that seems to be free is Luyanó, where, despite the scarcity and widespread problems to buy in state stores, the cards have arrived.
Outside the capital, shortages are also reported in Sancti Spíritus. There, in the warehouses, the orders for January are being written down in the old notebooks.
That these objects are missing, everyday on the Island since the establishment of the rationed market, in 1962, is not a new situation. Last year, the same thing happened.
In a publication of the Ministry of Domestic Trade It was then clarified that there were “delays in the importation of raw materials for printing”, which delayed the “preparation and distribution” of the document, essential to buy the subsidized basic basket. That is to say: there was no paper.
Until the issuance of the new notebooks is restored, the brief statement read, in the western and central provinces the one for 2021 would be used. And to avoid confusion, the products purchased would be “crossed out” before annotating the products. in the available lines “in the sheets of January and February” of 2022. This December, Cubans experience a deja vu.
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