HOLGUÍN, Cuba. – “I have been trying to buy a gas cylinder for three months. The queue is organized by lists of 500 people and I signed up for the fourth list. This week they will not sell, they informed us that the cars that transport the gas are in Santiago de Cuba“, he said to CubaNet Hugo Herrera from Holguin kept his place in the immense queue.
The deficit of liquefied gas in the province harms hundreds of Holguín residents who depend on this product for cooking. After more than two months without its commercialization, on November 29, the Territorial Division of Fuel Marketing reported the resumption of the sale.
The official note highlights that “the dispatch will be carried out according to the lists identified in each establishment, but people who do not comply with the previously mentioned condition will have their turn respected from the sixth day after starting the trade.”
However, citizens’ frustration does not dissipate and the “organizational” measures implemented create more questions than answers.
Confusion is evident among consumers. Glenda Medina, who is in line at the Alex Urquiola distribution point of sale, recounts how the announcement of a new list left those who had been waiting for months in limbo. “We have been on a list for months and we have pre-tickets, the government representatives who now supposedly organize the queue know this and today they have told us that the old list is useless because a new one is going to be made,” said Medina, visibly angry.
The discomfort extends to those who have been without access to liquefied gas since the beginning of the year. At the point of sale of the Ibero-American distribution, Jacinto Franco points out the lack of transparency about when the previous lists will be attended to, while the implementation of new measures causes displeasure among those affected. “They are making the list for those who have not purchased from January until today, because I don’t know if the other lists will be attended to next year or the next,” Franco said.
Officially it was recognized that not all demand could be covered: “there has been a gap in the delivery of fuel due to the arrival of the product,” reported Irenaldo Pérez Cardoso, deputy director of the Cuba-Petroleum Union.
The official also warned that with the current availability there will only be a marketing margin of 17 to 20 days.
Her control card has been of no use to Yolanda Reyes from Holguín to buy gas. The woman denounces that distribution errors leave many without access to gas for months, contradicting what was promised in the official media. “Those of us who have a control card have not been able to buy and we cannot do so until those who have never bought do so. I haven’t bought anything since June,” said Reyes, who was standing in line at the Peralta distribution point of sale.
With exorbitant prices, inaccessible to the majority, illegal resale makes the scenario even more complex. Retiree Adolfo Solís exemplifies how scarcity encourages the informal market, leaving the most vulnerable without options. “Resellers are asking 10,000 pesos for a bottle of gas and most of us cannot pay; “I am a retiree with a pension of 1,672 pesos per month,” said Solís. “This is already too much; The poor cannot live,” said Espinosa, another retired elderly man.
For his part, Amaury Sánchez blames the Government for its alleged lack of planning and organization and denies official explanations that point to external factors. “We are blaming the Americans,” says Sánchez, “but the mistakes are made by the Government that has not known how to organize the sale of liquefied gas. “We are not eating with each other.”
Pessimism predominates in Holguín. Freddy Córtez summarizes the feelings of thousands: buying liquefied gas has become an odyssey, an endless struggle that not only promises to be repeated, but to get worse. “After I manage to buy, I will do it again in a year or two years,” Córtez says with resignation and pessimism.
