The “Operation to combat the coleros“, started in Havana in August 2020, comes to an end. The innumerable cases of corruption linked to these “brigades” called to organize the lines in the stores have forced a change in the sales policy in the capital that will pass control to the hands of the wineries, so that there are already those who predict that illicit enrichment will simply change hands.
The Government of Havana ad this Wednesday, abruptly, the imminent change, which begins to be applied today in the municipalities of Centro Habana, Old Havana, Regla, Cotorro and Arroyo Naranjo; although later it will be extended to the rest.
Each family nucleus will be able to purchase the released products, controlled in the TRD and Caribe stores, through a ticket system that will include the name of the purchasing establishment, the number of the warehouse and the nucleus, the number of consumers and the number of the consecutive.
“Everyone will know the day and the place that they have to buy, so as to avoid exhausting queues and individuals who take advantage of the current situation to act illegally and enrich themselves”
“Everyone will know the day and the place that they have to buy, so as to avoid the exhausting queues and the individuals who take advantage of the current situation to act illegally and enrich themselves,” says the Government of the capital.
There will be five defined controlled products for sale: chicken, hash, sausage, oil and detergent. Regarding sales cycles, families of up to eight people will have 5 kilos of chicken, two bottles of oil, four tubes of hash, one kilo of detergent and two kilos of sausages. The figure doubles for nuclei of nine to 16 members and triples from 17.
There will be extended business hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10 am to 7 pm, for those who cannot go to normal business for work reasons; and Sundays are fixed for those who cannot go shopping on the day that is their turn or to pick up products that “due to force majeure it was not possible to guarantee the day that they were supposed to buy.” The latter is such a common situation that it threatens to saturate Sunday. Another of the weaknesses of the system is the organization outside the stores that will be done “in order of arrival”, that is, a new queue although, a priori, on a smaller scale.
The day of purchase that corresponds to each nucleus will be set by the order of the consecutive number and depending on the daily capacity of the establishment, which must clearly display at the entrance the numbers that are bought each day and the number that is intended for sale. of those who cannot attend on the scheduled day. The information will also be offered to citizens through the application and will contain the distribution cycles and the order by days of the wineries and consumers.
The situation will be in the hands of “a person who enjoys prestige and authority in the community, to exercise control of the amount of products that the establishment receives daily.”
In any case, the situation will be in the hands of “a person who enjoys prestige and authority in the community, to exercise control over the number of products that the establishment receives daily, with the aim of defining the number of nuclei that can be make the purchase on the day”. The chosen one, whose merits are not a guarantee of his capacity to resist bribery, must review the stocks, define and inform the nuclei that they will buy that day, as well as take stock at the end of the fulfillment of what was planned.
In the case of the “vulnerable”, who will be defined by the municipal governments and will have a document that accredits them as such, they will be able to buy themselves or through someone who can help them by presenting their identity card and that certificate.
The text released by the Government to announce the changes to the population contains a series of measures that must be taken prior to the establishment of the new system that make it doubtful that it can enter into force immediately.
Among them is preparing in a seminar the personnel who will control the book and those in charge of supervising the inventory of products. In addition, there is talk of “establishing a meeting with the administrators or managers” to detail the new format and develop a program that communicates the strategy to the population, as well as a pilot test of the TeToca and Ticket applications, which will facilitate the organization.
The authorities claim to have made these decisions after verifying that there were “difficulties in the functioning of the municipal groups” and “insufficient confrontation with the ‘coleros’, resellers and hoarders”
The authorities claim to have made these decisions after verifying that there were “difficulties in the functioning of the municipal groups” and “insufficient confrontation with the colerosresellers and hoarders” despite the fact that so far this year it has “confronted” 1,352. Especially significant is the allusion to the “repeated statements of opinion of the population about the operation of the LCC groups (Fight against Coleros ), conditioned by irregularities”.
The reaction to the news, disseminated in the official media, has been mostly positive, including requests that it be extended to other provinces soon and celebrating the end of the “abuse” and “mistreatment” attributed to LCC groups, although they have not missing demands that the products be distributed by the winery or doubts about the new system that, at least, seems hasty.
Although the figure of the LCC group has been controversial since the beginning, on November 1, the death of an old man In a queue at the store on Melones street, in Luyanó, he uncovered a network of corruption that the authorities had no choice but to put a stop to and which may have been the trigger. The fence lasted a few daysbecause just a few days later the neighbors already warned of the return of the coleros that, in collusion with the LCC, left the shops bare, on this occasion even renting the notebooks.
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