While the population faces hunger, blackouts and generalized shortage, filtered documents reveal that Gaesa accumulates more than 18,000 million dollars in reserves.
Madrid, Spain.- In the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises that Cuba has crossed, new leaks reveal that the revolutionary armed forces, through the Business conglomerate Gaesa, accumulate a fortune of more than 18,000 million dollars, a higher than international reserves of countries such as Uruguay, Costa Rica or Panama.
The secret documents, to which The American newspaper had exclusive access Miami Heraldthey throw an unprecedented radiography on the finances of the military emporium that dominates key sectors of the national economy – from tourism to banking, retail trade and remittances – and reinforce what many economists, opponents and citizens on the island have denounced for years: the existence of a “parallel government” with power and sufficient resources to alleviate social collapse, but without political will to do so.
The power behind the shadows
Under the leadership of Raúl Castro, Gaesa (SA Business Administration Group) has established itself as the true economic engine of Cuba, with dozens of companies under their control. Although his current visible face is Brigade General Ania Guillermina Lastres Murera, the conglomerate remains closely linked to the elite of the Communist Party and the circles of military power that have governed the country for more than six decades.
The new documents obtained by the Herald —22 internal spreadsheets corresponding to March and August of 2024 – detail general balances, results states, inventories and profit reports of 25 conglomerate companies, some of which had not been previously identified as part of GAESA. The information, organized with thoroughness and processed by an accounting digital system, allows for the first time to evaluate the real scope of the conglomerate in the Cuban economy.
“This is the first time that detailed financial data of GAESA is available to evaluate its monopolistic and financial power with figures,” he told the Herald The Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, professor at the Javeriana University of Colombia. “With the data of the financial statements, the very high weight that Gaesa has in the Cuban economy is confirmed. They have international reservations of dollars, and yet the rest of the economy is falling apart.”
Hidden income and accounting opacity
The figures are overwhelming: only in the first quarter of 2024, Gaesa generated $ 2.1 billion in net benefits. Cimex, its main company, responsible for retail, banking and international trade business, contributed half of that amount. But even excluding Cimex, the conglomerate had 18,000 million dollars in current assets, of which 14,500 million were deposited in their own bank accounts or financial institutions.
The problem, according to economists, is not only in the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the military apparatus, but in the total opacity with which it is managed. “Gaesa does not pay accounts or responds” before the National Assembly or to any auditor body, Vidal emphasizes. When he worked at the Central Bank of Cuba, he remembers, he did not have access to the financial statements of institutions such as the International Financial Bank, also under the control of Gaesa.
In fact, the Comptroller General Gladys Bejerano was dismissed after publicly declaring that he could not audit Gaesa because he was not under his jurisdiction.
Falling tourism and millionaire losses
Paradoxically, while the regime alleges that the lack of foreign exchange prevents maintaining thermoelectric, buying medications or importing basic foods, spreadsheets reveal that money does exist, only that it is poorly distributed. The tourist company Gaviota, for example, lost $ 5.8 billion between March and August 2024, after having invested in new Hotels that remain empty due to the collapse of tourism.
In March, Gaviota had 8,500 million dollars; For August, its balance was just 2.7 billion. Part of those funds was deposited in Rafin SA, another financial institution owned by the Army. It is not known if that money was transferred abroad or used for other purposes, but its disappearance has not been explained.
The losses were not limited to seagull. According to an internal presentation, Cimex also reported a 30% drop in its planned profits and a 63% decrease in its wholesale trade in dollars in just three months.
A system parallel to the State
For experts, the most alarming fact is not only the accumulation of wealth, but the model that supports it. Gaesa does not pay taxes on its sales in dollars or their earnings. In fact, the little that owes to the state budget – 920 million pesos – represents less than 1% of its income declared in that period. In turn, he received from the treasury 9.2 billion pesos as “state investment.”
This capital flow remains under exclusive control of the Armed Forces, through a little known fiscal entity: the Tax Administration Office of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Oatfar), whose existence was revealed in the documents and on which there is no public information.
“They confirm that approximately 40% of the economy operates under norms other than the rest, with very little transparency, without supervision of civil institutions and with a high degree of independence of the agencies responsible for economic management,” Vidal warned after reviewing the financial statements.
40% of GDP?
From the data of 2023, Vidal estimated that the profits on Gaesa’s sales were equivalent to about 40% of Cuba’s gross domestic product. “There are no precedents of this,” he said. “Gaesa’s participation in Cuba’s GDP exceeds the percentage attributed to state oil companies in Latin America, such as Ecopetrol in Colombia, Petrobras in Brazil or even PDVSA in Venezuela ”.
Experts warn about the risks of this concentration of economic power in the hands of a closed military dome and without accountability.
Meanwhile, the regime continues to blame the American embargo for the crisis that the island crosses. But the documents obtained by the Herald They show that money exists, and that misery in Cuba is not due to the lack of resources, but to a power structure that manages them based on their own interests.
