Nine months after the passage of hurricane Ian For Cuba, 70% of the houses destroyed in Pinar del Río are still not being built. That was the central theme of the meeting this Thursday at the Palace of the Revolution headed by the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz. In it, the effects on houses in Camagüey, Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba were also put on the table after the intense rains two weeks ago.
If one takes into account that in December of last year, 83% was the amount of families affected in Pinar del Ríomeans that in six months only 13% of cases have been resolved.
“It is inconceivable that we have a material resource and it is not in place,” quoted in the official press as a sign of the “constant dissatisfaction of the people for the limited progress in the rate of recovery of the housing fund.”
Although the note published jointly by Granma and cubadebate They describe the government meeting as a “profound analysis” that “did not leave gaps for self-satisfied expressions”, the title reveals the impotence of the State to solve the problem: “We have to find solutions together”.
Marrero once again expressed himself in voluntaristic terms, saying that it is necessary “to draw up a different strategy to speed up the recovery, which is not going at the pace demanded by the population.”
Some not very encouraging data on the “compliance” with the housing plan for the month of May: only 13% of the subsidy program has been completed and 9% of the eradication of dirt floors
Without detailing what this different strategy would consist of, the prime minister continued in the same vein: “We cannot leave it to spontaneity; we must control, we must lead this process and the search for solutions until we finish.”
Marrero did not specify if there had been theft of materials, but declared: “In all these affected provinces, whoever we catch diverting a resource must strictly apply the established laws.”
He also acknowledged that “there is a lack of attention, visiting people, going inside their homes”, because “it has been shown on the ground that things can be done, despite this cruel blockade that we are experiencing”, referring, as usual, to the US embargo.
Among so much inconsistency, he gave some discouraging data on the “compliance” with the housing plan for the month of May: only 13% of the subsidy program has been completed and 9% of the eradication of dirt floors.
What is affecting the completion of the houses, says the prime minister, is “the lack of electrical cable and carpentry.”
Hurricane Ian, which passed through western Cuba at the end of last September, left the province of Pinar del Río as a “disaster zone.” The tobacco industry, the main one in the province, suffered, in the government’s own words“the biggest blow in its history” and more than one hundred thousand homes suffered considerable damage.
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