“The five-peso stamps disappeared just like the milk,” says a woman in an office of the Directorate of Identification, Immigration and Aliens (DIIE) in Havana. The lack of this piece of stamped paper delays the procedures for the renewal of the identity card, the sale of a house or the issuance of a power of attorney.
From requesting a birth certificate or making a declaration of heirship, each of these procedures requires presenting stamps stamped for a certain value, but the scarcity of stamps of five and ten pesos complicate all those procedures that require these values or do not carry a payment that is a multiple of 20.
“I came to make a power of attorney to give my brother the power to sell the house when I’m not there,” he told this Thursday to 14ymedio a client of the Notary on 10th Street, between 15 and 17, in El Vedado in Havana. “The most difficult thing was not the queue here, although we had to mark from early in the morning. The most complicated thing was finding the stamps.”
The woman got four stamps for five pesos but had to buy them at a price of 30 each. “In the Post Office there are no stamps of five or ten, but here at the notary’s office you cannot deliver those that exceed the amount of the procedure. If it is worth five in stamps, they will not accept one of 20,” she laments.
“I came to make a power of attorney to give my brother the power to sell the house when I’m not there”
On the outskirts of the place, an informal vendor shows a strip with more than a dozen five-peso stamps. “Come on, hurry up, I have a few left,” he repeats to everyone who approaches. A client of the place decides to buy some for “if later the ones I brought are not enough.” The young man has come to the Notary also to make a power of attorney.
“My thing is so that my mother can register a cousin who is going to come to live in my house when I finally go to Mexico,” he clarifies. She, due to her processing, must deliver stamps worth 75 pesos. “I have three of 20, one of 10 that I got by a miracle and another of five that my brother gave me, but I need several copies of the document so I have to multiply that.”
In 2020, the authorities approved the issuance of stamps in the denominations of 50 pesos, 125, 500 and 1,000. But even those higher denominations have also struggled in recent months due to high demand to make passports and leave the country. But it is the lower value ones that are going through the worst situation.
“Not many are arriving and they tell us that it is a problem with the raw material,” an employee of a Cuban Post Office located on the Cerro roadway explains to this newspaper. Stamp seals are printed on security paper, carry a translucent watermark, also visible red and blue fibers; other ultraviolet yellow fibers and holographic bands.
“I can’t go on without a license because if a police officer asks for it on the street I can end up at the station”
“They come to us one packet at a time and they run out immediately. We have even had to ration the number of stamps we sell to each client because there are many people who buy in large quantities to resell,” he explains.
Omar, a 42-year-old man from Havana, arrived this week at the DIIE offices because he had his identity card in the back pocket of his pants and it broke when he sat down. To obtain the new document he needs stamps worth 25 pesos, a requirement that he did not imagine would be so difficult to achieve.
First, he went to the Post Office on the corner of Carlos III and Belascoaín. “We only have 20 and 10, but not 5, what you can do is buy the 20 here and see where you can get the one you need,” the employee replied with a sad face. After three days of searching in various post offices, Omar opted for an informal vendor.
“I can’t go on without a license because if a police officer asks for it on the street I can end up at the station,” he admits. For a piece of paper with the number five painted in the center, Omar paid three times its value. “This or wait for them to supply stamps, but I’m not going to delay because tomorrow they may cost more.”
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