After almost two years disappeared from shops in national currency, the Government once again put a few fans on sale in Havana this Thursday. “They only appear for 60 dollars and more in stores in MLC (freely convertible currency) and since long before the pandemic they were not seen in stores in pesos,” explains a mother who this Thursday was trying to buy one of the equipment in the Market Friendship in Centro Habana.
Each team, Inpud brand, costs 1,220 pesos ($ 49 at the official exchange rate) and only one is sold per person.
“We have spent the whole summer without fans and right now they are putting them up for sale,” the woman complained.
Fans are not a luxury in Cuban homes. To the excessive heat is added the fact that many homes do not have enough windows to cool off, they are divided by barbecues that make the rooms lower or are of the so-called “affected” type, the tiny apartments without balcony or terrace that proliferated in the buildings of Soviet architecture.
In most homes, the summer heatwave forces you to keep the fan on all night, something that triggers the electricity bill but also quickly deteriorates these devices. Families with more purchasing power can afford an air conditioning unit but the rise in the price of electricity has caused many to return to the fan and fan for only a few hours in the early morning.
“The first coleros are those of the anti-coleros brigade, they are the first that sell shifts, that traffic with everything they take out in the stores and then they leave with a bag full of things for their homes”
Not being able to buy fans for so long has become a problem for Cuban families. “Those who sell in stores a year or so begin to fail, the bushings wear out, they take less fresh or they end up without the engine working,” says a neighbor on San Francisco Street who was also in line to buy this Thursday. one of the appliances.
“You have to take them to the mechanic and it is not cheap,” he continues. Before I solved with 10 CUC (currency that has now disappeared, equivalent to 250 pesos), but now everything costs much more. Just for maintaining it and greasing it, they charge me 350 pesos. “
Meanwhile, rationed purchases of the basic basket in over-the-counter markets continue in Havana, even though this Wednesday, the capital authorities will announce that “the municipalization of commerce” would be eliminated. The term, typical of the island’s bureaucracy, refers to the purchases that people could make, with a supply book in hand, only in their municipality of residence.
To “control” that “the greatest possible fairness” is met in sales, they will continue to supervise “the Fighting Group Against Coleros”, which must keep a record of purchases and control queues.
“The first coleros They are those from the anti-coleros brigade, they are the first to sell shifts, they traffic with everything they take out in the stores and then they leave with a bag full of things for their homes, “denounces Eurídices, a neighbor of Old Havana “They have been profiting from the issue of queues and regulated sales in stores,” he adds, noting that since he began “the battle” of the ruling party against coleros, there has been corruption.
“Imagine that at the beginning of the pandemic they put officials from the municipal directorates of various sectors to watch queues, including the directors of those bodies who are members of the Municipal Administration Council,” he says. “One of them wanted to sell me for 250 pesos a combo of a small chicken and a knob of oil that cost 125”.
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