The State Council of Cuba appointed Jesús Otamendiz Campos on Monday as the new Minister of Labor and Social Security to cover the open vacancy after the controversy that led to the resignationMarta Elena Feitó Cabrera.
Otamendiz, 50, served as vice governor of the province of Havana, although in previous years he had held other responsibilities in the portfolio that is now under his position, including the positions of Vice Minister and Vice Minister First.
After moving to the government of the Cuban capital in 2023, it had remained as a “immediate reserve” of the head of Labor and Social Security, According to the official note Published in El Diario Granma.
The new minister has a law degree and a doctor of pedagogical sciences. He was appointed by the State Council at the proposal of President Miguel Díaz-Canel and “after approval of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PC), the statement said.
Cuban authorities evaluate their previous performance as “positive” and highlight that as vice governor of Havana he demonstrated “capacity and leadership.”
| The State Council, at the proposal of the President of the Republic and prior approval of the political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, agreed to promote the position of Minister of Labor and Social Security to fellow Jesús Otamendiz Campos.https://t.co/7a3n3mc7ng pic.twitter.com/JC1I5C20VP
– Cuba Presidency (@presidenciacuba) August 19, 2025
Feitó Cabrera substitute
With his appointment, Otamendiz becomes the substitute for Feitó Cabrera, who resigned as a minister last July after the controversy generated by his statements about begging in Cuba before a commission of the National Assembly.
Then the former minister said that on the island there were no beggars but “disguised.” He even went further to carry those who clean windshields and ask for money in traffic lights and against the so -called “divers” of garbage, who came to say that “they are illegal of self -employment that are violating the treasury.”
His words had an immediate reaction on and outside the island, and in particular on social networks, where criticisms multiplied Against the minister, the deputies who did not question their statements and the Cuban government itself.
The questions and indignation for the said came from both opponents and sectors of the ruling party, intellectuals and the population in general, and took Díaz-Canel himself to publicly reprob Feitó Cabrera, first without appointing it and then more directly.
“It is counterproductive to issue judgments like that,” he considered in allusion to the statements of the former, while affirming that “the revolution is not defended when the problems we have are hidden.”
Next, Feitó Cabrera resigned as minister, a decision that was accepted by the political bureau of the PCC and the State Council, which referred to the “errors” of politics and its “lack of objectivity and sensitivity.”
The controversial statements came in one of the most critical moments for Cuba in decades. According to official data, in 2024 the Government reported 189 thousand families and 350 thousand people in vulnerability, a significant figure in a country that has less than 10 million inhabitants.
Various reports and reports in the networks corroborate the increase in homeless and beggars in Cuban streets, a phenomenon enhanced by accumulated inflation, the deficiencies multiplied by the economic crisis and the gradual decline of social protection policies on the island that in the past made the difference in the region.
