The Consumer Registry Office (Oficoda) on Juan Alonso street, in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó, was in chaos this Monday morning. Outside the establishment, dozens of people were milling around to solve the problems they are having with their cards.
“This year, the notebook can only be lost once, if it is lost again, we are not going to give it to you until the following year,” an employee warned loudly, without specifying if, in case the notebook is lost, notebook, the right to buy rationed food is also lost. “Are they going to write it down on a piece of cardboard or what?” Complained a neighbor who, reluctantly, let a woman pass in front of her who was with her little son, who, tired, did not stop crying . It was barely eleven in the morning and only three people had been attended to, when it was clear that there were four other workers inside the premises doing nothing.
As if that were not enough, the process to acquire the new notebook can take up to 17 days, when they used to do it at the time.
To the shortage of paper, which once again has caused the delay in the delivery of the new notebooksa disorder is added such that it is causing implausible mistakes. Like the one that affects Caty, also a neighbor of Luyanó.
“They tell me that I have to go back to the Oficoda to correct the error, but I am not going to correct anything. I did what they asked me, which was to unsubscribe my mother, if they have put her back it is their problem”
A few months ago, she was pressured by the authorities to discharge her mother, who recently died, with the threat of receiving a fine. When she picked up this year’s booklet, she couldn’t help but be amazed: they had put her mother’s name back on. “They tell me that I have to go back to the Oficoda to correct the error, but I am not going to correct anything. I did what they asked me, which was to unsubscribe my mother, if they have put her back it is their problem” , tells this newspaper. “As it is, anything is possible, until the dead come back to take the bread.”
Juan Alonso’s Oficoda has been the subject of complaints on citizen networks for days. “Incredibly I have been dialing” in that office for three days “to verify the data in my supply book, which by decision of that entity I have retained without being able to purchase any food from the basic basket,” laments the user Zonia Suárez, who clarifies that she does not He has no wrong information and that those registered in his card are alive and reside in Cuba.
The woman explains that the queues for this procedure begin at four in the morning, and that the establishment closes at twelve noon. The picture she draws is similar to the one 14ymedio confirmed in Juan Alonso: “There are a great many errors in hundreds of notebooks, and the staff that attends to this is made up of rather slow elderly people and only one small table blocking the way to the entity, so pregnant and elderly people crowd into the door and discussions rain down”.
Suárez assures that he asked who gave the “guidance” to withhold the basic basket due to errors that are not made by the clients, but by the authorities, and that they replied that “this comes from above.” “I imagine that it is from Jupiter or Mercury,” the woman ironically, “because no one who lives in Cuba can afford to take such measures without having the right conditions with those who have that notebook as their only livelihood.”
“In our store they have not been able to start dispatching the January module because there are a hundred families who have not bought the December one”
Those who do not have errors in their booklet, on the other hand, are equally annoyed by the decrease in the rationed products on offer. “People are green because of the reduction in the number of products that will be sold in Havana through the stores in Cuban pesos where you buy with the card that is given to each family nucleus. The machete blow is significant, many merchandise practically falls halfway,” laments a young man from Central Havana, in a warehouse that put the January module on sale this Monday and still does not have the new notebooks available. “Last month they gave out four packets of hash, the bad kind, and now they only give out two, and the same with the sausages and oil. In my mother’s store they haven’t given out white sugar and what they gave out was three pounds of rice per person”.
These are bad times, the worst, for the rationing system that the Island has suffered since 1962. Because if all this were not enough, the new system of “cycles” established by the Havana authorities since last December 1which depends on “product availability” in the state chains Tiendas Caribe and Cimex, has caused many families that still do not have the January module available.
“In our store they have not been able to start shipping the January module because there are a hundred families left that have not bought the December one. Until they buy the previous one, they cannot start selling the current one,” warns a neighbor of Plaza de the revolution.
In Luyanó, Caty was able to buy just yesterday what was in December. “So what happened in January will be my turn in February”, she resigns herself. From the street, among the crowd, the framed photo that presides over the Oficoda on Juan Alonso street is very clear: Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel, with the printed motto: “We are Cuba, we are continuity.”
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio He is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for accompanying us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
