MIAMI, United States. — Officials of the Santiago de Cuba Provincial Food Industry Company (EPIA) assured that they only have half of the flour necessary for their productions.
A newspaper report workers It highlights that this industry, specialized in the manufacture and processing of different types of food (cookies, pancakes, sweets, noodles, syrups, etc.) lacks essential raw materials such as eggs, sugar and alcohol.
In the specific case of flour, the State barely guarantees the Company 65 tons, little more than half of the assortment that the industry had before the product began to be scarce throughout the country.
This situation has meant that the physical plan planned for 2023, of 21,000 tons, is well below the one prepared last year, which was more than 53,000.
workers points out that, as has happened in other provinces of the country, the EPIA of Santiago de Cuba has had to resort to sweet potatoes and cassava to compensate for the lack of wheat flour.
The Santiago EPIA is in charge of preparing and distributing the so-called “basic basket”. However, it is an activity that brings losses to the Company.
The official media expands that at the end of 2022 the Provincial Company of the Food Industry of Santiago de Cuba had 123 million pesos in economic losses and that just over 73 million pesos were “paid for salary without productive support.”
Trabajadores argued that it is “an unfavorable labor force correlation, since only 39 percent of the employees are direct to production, while 61 percent are indirect personnel.”
In August 2022 the Cuban regime recognized the shortage of wheat flour in the country, an essential element for production in the bakery industry.
According to the authorities, the lack of the product was due to “the current international logistics crisis and the country’s financial limitations”, which had “exacerbated the difficulties for importing wheat.”
