HAVANA, Cuba. – The figures and information that emerged in the recent sessions of the National Assembly of People’s Power The ongoing failures in the moribund Cuban economy have caused other, no less important, issues to be pushed to the back burner. One of these issues is the chaotic accounting situation in the Cuban business system.
In truth, it is a negative phenomenon with deep roots in the Castro educational system, and which later extended to the functioning of the economy. Before 1959, there was a network of Business Schools in Cuba that efficiently trained the accountants that the Island needed. However, already in the 1960s, in the context of the idealistic phase of the Revolution, and in the heat of a false battle against bureaucracy and “jobs in the shadows,” the Accounting studies at the University of Buenos Aires were closed. University of Havana.
It seems that this area of economics has not been able to recover completely since then. During the 1970s and 1980s, many companies, when submitting their financial statements to higher levels, were assessed as having “unreliable accounting”, meaning that there was no certainty that what was stated in those documents accurately reflected what was happening in the entities in terms of production, costs, income, expenses and other indicators.
There were problems with the curricula, both in secondary and higher education, in providing adequate training for new accountants, and as a result accounting departments were rarely able to fill their workforce.
A situation that has worsened in recent times. The great wave of migration, as well as the exodus of professionals and technicians from state entities to private businesses in search of higher income, has also affected the areas of economics and accounting of companies and entities.
In this regard, the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, speaking at one of the sessions of Parliament this month, outlined a programme of measures – not specified – to strengthen accounting in the country, with a view to guaranteeing the reliability of financial and statistical information.
After referring to the repeated deficiencies and indiscipline in accounting present in the accounting and financial areas of the entities – which indicates that the minister was thinking more about state actors than non-state actors – the official express: “Hence, one of the proposed measures is aimed at completing the templates, as well as minimizing the causes that motivate the non-issuance of financial statements.”
In fact, we were not expecting this confession from the minister. So there are entities in this country that do not present financial statements to the highest levels of the economy! Before, they were classified as “unreliable” information, but now the matter is more serious: they do not present the information.
So what do ministries and municipal statistics offices do to inform the government of the production, costs and other economic indicators of those entities that do not submit their financial statements? They simply have no choice but to estimate these indicators.
Although, to tell the truth, in this case the regime could apply the maxim that says “when the waters are troubled, the fishermen profit.” This would be a practice that, among other things, could be related to the manipulation of statistics to suit the authorities.
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