HAVANA, Cuba.- In recent times, the economic leaders of Castroism, in order to mitigate corruption and criminal acts that abound in state companies and entities of the nation, promoted internal control in said dependencies. A control based on the figure of the internal auditor, a worker of the entity with knowledge of Economics and Accounting, whose main mission is to monitor the rest of his colleagues so that they do not appropriate the finished products, the productive inputs and other resources with which account your company.
This internal auditor must also ensure that the economic-productive management of the entity follows the guidelines set by higher levels, and thus prevent methodological errors from being detected by the external auditors of the ministries or the Comptroller General of the Republic.
However, everything indicates that the internal control mechanism has not been able to contain the diversion of resources -a euphemism used by the authorities to avoid mentioning the word robbery- that affects the Cuban state sector. Obviously there is no control environment in most entities. No one feels they own anything, not even the administrative heads, many of whom are the first to take ownership of what belongs to others.
In this context of government impatience to try to avoid the embezzlement of its productive resources, President Díaz-Canel’s suggestion was not lacking, in the sense of establishing popular control in state companies and entities. But, it has never been said how such control is intended to be established, whether the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution will be used, or the Rapid Response Brigades will be activated.
Thus, the Comptroller General of the Republic, Gladys Bejerano, without totally disregarding internal control – whose national inspection is announced for the month of September – has recently referred to self-control, a new mechanism characterized by the fact that each worker in the entity control itself!
The Comptroller declared that during the months of June and July a National Self-control Exercise will take place, which will be done “in order to promote a culture of control and prevention in administrations and aimed at strengthening their ethical conduct, participatory control systems and transparent accountability.”
It is obvious that the benefits that the ruling party expects from this self-control, a mechanism that borders on the absurd, reveals the few results that have been obtained by previous control mechanisms.
On the other hand, and although figures of criminal acts in companies and state entities have not been announced lately, some events allow us to appreciate that these anomalies are still present on a large scale.
For example, at the meeting of the Council of Ministers corresponding to the month of April, the Comptroller herself evaluated the behavior of indiscipline, illegalities and manifestations of administrative corruption during the year 2021, and reaffirmed that the activities of commerce and gastronomy, the industry agri-food and wholesale marketing had been the most affected in this regard.
Of course, what Mrs. Gladys Bejerano has never recognized is the failure of her Comptroller’s Office in the task of preventing such illegalities in the island’s business system, which has given rise to the incessant search for new control mechanisms.
And, in the end, these new control mechanisms will also fail. Because in this network of faceless owners of social property, deep down nobody cares about taking care of what only belongs to the ruling clique.
OPINION ARTICLE
The opinions expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the issuer and do not necessarily represent the opinion of CubaNet.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +1 (786) 316-2072, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
