The Sanitary Products Company (Prosa), located in the province of Matanzas, is almost paralyzed due to the lack of raw materials to produce one of the scarcest products in Cuba: toilet paper. Manolo González García, general manager of the state company, confirmed to the official newspaper Granma that they have only received a batch to produce the so-called “luxury paper”, which will be directed to meet the “needs” of tourism and, in smaller quantities, for sale in freely convertible currency (MLC) stores.
The company, underlines Granma, “is not going through a good time” and is responsible for the “shortage of toilet paper in the network of stores throughout the country.” “We are almost stopped,” one of the workers at the plant complained to the newspaper, a comment to which the director of the state-owned company countered, stating that “we are trying to get out of this uncomfortable situation.”
Prosa is the only company on the island dedicated to the manufacture of napkins, facial tissue, hand towels, and toilet paper. Its main clients are businesses dedicated to tourist activities, although they dedicate a part of their production to the supply of state stores.
However, it does not enjoy a good reputation among Cuban customers, who complain about the poor quality of its productions. Thin paper that melts in your hands, shrinking rolls and other shortcomings have fueled criticism from consumers and jokes from comedians for years.
Thin paper that melts in your hands, shrinking rolls and other shortcomings have fueled consumer criticism for years
The plant receives inputs from local companies, but depends largely on imports. In 2017, When new machinery was addedthe authorities assured that the industry was destined to replace imports of toilet paper with the production of 96 million rolls, of which 73 million were to be sold in stores.
But the lack of supplies meant that in 2022 production closed at a minimum and further and further away from that projection, González García assured. The official explained that they only got 2,000 tons of clipping of waste paper, with which they made 16 million of the 55 million rolls planned.
The workers of the plant “cling” to the production of “luxury paper” and await the arrival of “a certain amount” of raw materials of national origin to produce four million rolls of ecological paper in the first months of 2023, he assured. the manager of the company. However, he added, the “ideal” solution is to have enough financing to import inputs.
Leslie Reyes Álvarez, Prosa’s logistics manager, assured that they also face several delays in the delivery of materials from other state companies because priority is given to more sensitive sectors. “We cannot compete with the population’s chicken,” she said, while acknowledging that they have been waiting 15 days for five “bottled” containers from Jovellanos, due to problems with a locomotive.
Plant workers “cling” to the production of “luxury paper” and wait for the arrival of “a certain amount” of raw materials
“The truth is that today the market is short of toilet paper, and that forces us to run after the raw material, which most of the time arrives too late, which puts us against the clock to somehow comply with our customers “, he insisted.
Among the star products that are being imported are the recently allowed MSMEs Cubans are precisely toilet paper, napkins, hygienic towels and kitchen paper. In the informal market and on digital commerce sites, only foreign brands of these goods have appeared for months, such as Costco Kirkland toilet paper, from the United States.
“Orders now, the container arrives in Mariel at the end of this month,” announced one of these small companies whose main catalog includes toilet paper, feminine pads, soft drinks, and beers on its Facebook account. In the image that accompanies the ad, a forklift moves a pallet full of extremely white rolls of Colombian-made Ritz toilet paper.
But in most houses, the practice of using newspaper in the bathroom has returned, given the reality of shortages and the high prices that the product has reached. Find a few pieces of the pages of Granma in the toilets of homes and public establishments it is becoming more frequent, as it was during the crisis of the 90s.
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