MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban Government reported that until the end of August it has only managed to fulfill 39% of the construction plan for new homes for 2024, which represents 5,262 units of the 13,492 planned for the year, as revealed by the official newspaper Granma this Wednesday.
This result was discussed in a meeting headed by the prime minister of the Cuban regime, Manuel Marrero Cruz, together with the provincial governors. According to the official report, at the meeting a “very low rate of execution” and “insufficient” levels in the production of construction materials were identified as the main causes of non-compliance.
If the current trend continues, this year’s default rate is anticipated to be significantly higher than in 2023, even though the current plan had already reduced the new construction target by 45% compared to the previous year.
In 2023, it was planned to build 24,715 homes, but only 65% of that figure was completed, with 16,065 homes built.
Among the provinces most affected by this poor performance are Havana, Camagüey, Las Tunas, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo. According to the report presented, the housing deficit in Cuba currently amounts to 856,500 homes.
The Cuban Government launched a housing policy in 2018 with the intention of resolving the housing deficit in 10 years. At that time, the official deficit was 929,695 homes, with a plan that included the rehabilitation of 402,000 existing homes and the construction of 527,000 new ones.
Critics and independent economists have pointed out that the country’s public investments in recent years have focused more on the construction of luxury hotels, to the detriment of other sectors such as housing.
Although tourist occupancy in Cuba is low and the sector has not yet recovered to even pre-pandemic numbers, the Government continues to remodel and building hotels.
Havana has tried to justify its strategy with the need to access foreign currency.
In a tweet Published in August 2013, economist Pedro Monreal drew attention to investment in hotel infrastructure when the Island exhibits a low occupancy rate.
“The average hotel occupancy in Cuba was 27.9% in the 1st. semester of 2023. Of every 10 rooms, seven are not used, but resources continue to be diverted to build hotels. “Could someone explain the rationality?” Monreal questioned.
