When I write these lines, my compatriots in the east of the country are suffering the consequences of the passage of Hurricane Melissa through that territory, leaving new and greater problems than those they usually face; many more than those we face in the capital.
TOThat exercise of dignity that Cuba carries out every year at the United Nations had also just happened to not only demand the end of the blockade, but also demonstrate the damage it causes to the people of Cuba. Cuba has won the fight againalthough we already saw fractures in the almost unanimity of the vote achieved in previous years.
It seems that there is no relationship between the two news items, but I find that there is.
Both are phenomena over which we can exert little influence: one, because it is a natural phenomenon, and the other, because it is in the hands of the United States Congress to change the blockade policy that has already accumulated more than six decades, something that has not been and does not seem to be on the agenda in the coming years, among other reasons, because the policy towards Cuba will continue to be part of the domestic political game of the northern neighbor.
On the other hand, in the face of the hurricane and the blockade, our strengths and our ability to anticipate are the best weapons to combat them. The devastation that both gales produce in our country becomes greater in proportion to the weaknesses we suffer; and recovery is more difficult for that same reason.
For that and because we have been waiting for it for almost two yearsthe news of the disclosure of the Government Program seemed very important to me. I confess that upon first reading this long document I was more surprised than enlightened. There are several reasons:
- I aspired for it to be a forceful, synthetic document that would cover the decisive aspects of our reality. While the name that has been repeated ad nauseam is “Government program to correct distortions and re-boost the economy”, I thought I would find a diagnosis that would identify and order by degree of impact the main distortions and the decisive obstacles/gaps/traps/obstacles that prevent the national economy from achieving greater dynamics. It is true that in all these years we have compiled entire books of distortions and obstacles, but presenting the government’s consideration in this regard would have allowed us to contrast the objectives (general and specific) as well as the indicators, with that assessment.
- I also expected to find the main challenges that the program aims to solve, ordered by their degree of importance and the length of time their solution will take. Time is a political variable of the greatest importance that in our case has been managed as if it were not the most scarce resource that human beings have.
It is true that there are multiple challenges that our country has to face, but For the government to offer the people what its priorities are is not a vain exercise. It would allow efforts to be aligned and resources to be concentrated. Identifying the main direction of the coup seems essential to me, especially to guarantee the essential minimum coherence that allows obtaining palpable results and to know/correct in time those decisions/measures/policies that do not contribute or are frankly negative to these challenges. - I also aspired to find in this Program an update of the country’s vision, because after almost ten years of having shared the one that appears in the Conceptualization document and taking into account the profound changes that have occurred, I think it was necessary to rethink and update what exists, especially the meaning/content of the terms.
My question is: Is that vision that we approved almost ten years ago the one that should guide this program? Has nothing happened in these ten years? Can we call ourselves “a prosperous country” when marginality and poverty have grown and a part of our population has become massive economic emigrants? Or when services that are decisive for people’s well-being, such as health, education, hygiene and civility, have suffered damage that seems irreparable? - It is also strange that the main lines/axes that would act transversally and connect the partial efforts are not identified. From this first reading, I have the perception that the policy coordination effort must be significant and it seems that it will continue to rely on meetings and visits and much less on indirect mechanisms that connect these different objectives.
The Program exceeds in its scope the title that announces it. There is a compilation of tasks/objectives for all or most sectors. It certainly offers information on most activities in the country, which is good. Nevertheless, It is still a sum of parts and it is difficult to find coherence between the many objectives.
- There are objectives and indicators that seem designed for the current year, especially those that have to do with sectors and branches of the economy. in them no explicit time horizon appears. While the defined goals expressed in percentages that have the year 2024 as a reference illustrate little, while the “actual execution of 2024” is still not known in a good part of them. An example below: “Contribution of non-state economic actors in the economy: higher than the real 2024.”
- This also being the Government Program to re-boost the economy, It is striking that the GDP projection for the coming years does not appear, which, on the other hand, leads one to think that this program only covers the year that is about to end. However, there are objectives that, due to their magnitude, will cover several years of intense work, such as: “Carry out actions to develop the technological platform of the public debt market and the inclusion of monetary regulation bill operations”.
Nor does anything appear referring to categories such as gross capital formation, household consumption and government consumption, investment rate and allocation priorities, the latter issue that for several years has constituted one of the greatest distortions of our economy. - A Government Program should, in my opinion, generate TRUST between the only three agents/actors of the economy—families, companies and the State— and in that sense there are some announcements that point to this, such as those referring to the treatment of foreign investment, something that has been announced for years, or debt-for-asset negotiations, an instrument that is already being used occasionally. However, in other issues such as those related to monetary and exchange policy, it is not the same. A government program should be accompanied by a sequence of actions to be undertaken and their respective time frames, something which this program lacks.
I do not believe that this can be the program that guides the necessarily profound reform that our economy needs or that sustains our development efforts.
But we already have a proposal: the exercise of public discussion at all levels and citizen criticism can contribute to filling the deficits that are evident today.
I will repeat again that the sum of the parts does not necessarily lead to the whole.
government_program_to_correct_distortions_and_reboost_the_economy_2025
Six points about the Government Program and a mandatory mention
About the recently presented Government Program to correct distortions and re-boost the economy
