Author Archives: Havana Times

CUBA RELAXES SOME HOUSING REGULATIONS

9 September 2014 – Havana Times

Original here: http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=106049

HAVANA TIMES — The Cuban government has announced a series of measures aimed at restructuring the country’s current housing system and authorizing the building of dwellings on roofs, empty lots and State-owned land by the population.

The special issue of Cuba’s Official Gazette published this past Friday made public Council of State Decree Law 322/2014, a new legislation that substantially modifies the General Housing Law, in effect since 1988, and seeks to simplify the legal norms governing applications by citizens to request changes of address, the transfer of properties and individual construction work.

The legislation, signed by President Raul Castro on July 31, aims to “improve State housing services and reorganize housing-related activities, reassigning these to entities responsible for work hitherto governed by the National Housing Institute (INV).”

Urban Planning Control

This restructuring will involve the transfer of the INV’s chief functions to the Urban Planning Institute (IPF), presided by General Samuel Rodiles Planas, and to other State entities, such as the Ministries of Construction, Justice and Labor and Social Security and the Provincial and Municipal People’s Court system.

Following this government decision, the INV has become subordinate to the Ministry of Construction and is now tasked with directing, executing and enforcing State and government housing policy.

The Official Gazette also published seven complementary resolutions aimed at making the issuing of permits to the population more efficient, improving regional and urban organization and combatting illegal practices and construction work.

The legislative package will come into effect on January 5, 2015.

Assigning State lands to individuals or entities who request these for the building of homes, certifying that completed dwellings are habitable, approving procedures for technical reports used to value properties and transfer ownership of empty lots and flat roofs, are among the functions now taken on by the IPF.

Land Assignation

The new provisions will regulate the sale, purchase, donation and exchange of empty State lots.

The IPF will be empowered to assign State lots to individuals in need of these for the building of homes. The lot assigned will have to meet basic urban planning requirements, such that individuals may begin construction on these immediately.

“The Municipal Urban Planning Office, in cases approved by the Municipal Administrative Council and in accordance with the priorities established by the State, will be authorized to transfer ownership of State lots to individuals through the pertinent payments, giving these full rights over these properties, so that they may build homes in their jurisdiction, through the procedure to be established by the President of the Urban Planning Institute,” the Council of State Decree points out.

People who are assigned a State lot will be required to begin construction there within a year from purchase. Failing this, authorities will either extend the building permit for an additional year or decide to terminate the agreement, returning the amount paid.

Building on Flat Roofs

Those affected by natural disasters, people living in precarious conditions, welfare cases, those residing in State shelters or in earthquake or disaster-risk areas will be prioritized in the assignation of State lots.

Similarly, the transfer and use of flat roofs for the expansion of homes, through purchases and other mechanisms, will also be made more flexible.

“The owners of individual dwellings, dwellings located in buildings with several stories (where each story constitutes a single dwelling) and dwellings that are part of an apartment building, may, of mutual agreement, grant the owners of dwellings on the top floor the right to expand their homes, or grant a third party the right to build a new dwelling, in the flat roof of the building in question, provided it is technically feasible and does not violate any urban or regional regulations, following authorization from the Provincial Urban Planning Office,” the regulations specify.

The measures are aimed at alleviating Cuba’s housing deficit, calculated at 600,000 dwellings, and at encouraging individual construction efforts. According to official figures, a mere 26,634 new homes were built last year, the lowest figure registered since 2004. The most significant detail, however, is that nearly half (12,217) were built by the population, unaided by the State.

Cuba Apr 2012 012

Paseo del Prado

Cuba Apr 2012 090 Cuba Apr 2012 091 Cuba Mar 2014 094 Cuba Nov 2008 020Some potential reconstruction projects; Photos by A. Ritter

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Fidel Castro’s Son Calls for Major Change in Cuba Baseball Policy

October 27, 2013 |

 HAVANA TIMES — Antonio Castro, son of Fidel Castro and team doctor of the Cuban baseball squad, requested that the Cuban players who fled the island and became professionals in the US Major Leagues be allowed to play with the national team in international tournaments, reported dpa news on Sunday.

“We need to change on both sides, we have to do something realistic, we have to do something for our players … [The current policy is] not good for athletes, for families, for anyone. We lost those players but why can’t they return to play again with the national team,” asked Castro, in an interview on Cuban baseball today by ESPN.

“We have to strive to not lose them. Unless we change, we lose the players, we lose everything,” he added.

IndustrialesCampeon2010The Famous “Industriales”

Up to 16 players who fled the island played this season in the Major Leagues, including the new idol of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yasiel Puig.

Professional sports were abolished on the island in 1962, prohibiting Cuban athletes from working as professionals or joining foreign teams. Over the years it became routine for some athletes to skip out during trips abroad to try to build a future as professionals.

The sacrifice of having to leave their family is sometimes compensated with millions: This month Cuban first baseman José Dariel Abreu closed a record contract for a non-US player to play next season with the Chicago White Sox. He will earn US $68 million over six years.

Abreu defected from the island in August and obtained residency in Haiti, from where he began processing permits with the US Treasury Department in order to be a free agent and sign with the majors.

From Haiti he traveled to the Dominican Republic, where major league scouts were able to follow his progress as he trained.

Antonio Castro noted as an example the visit to Cuba this year by Jose Contreras, who defected and returned to the island after spending ten years playing in the United States. “I never expected to return to Cuba because many before me were not able to return, since the government considered us traitors,” he told ESPN.

Contreras escaped from the island in 2002 taking advantage of the presence of the national team in Monterrey, Mexico.

The return of the pitcher early this year was the first by an athlete who had abandoned a national team and came after the new Cuban immigration policy took effect on January 14, which allows for the return of athletes who left the country through irregular channels since the early ’90s and later as long as they had spent eight years abroad.

“Many want to go back and live here to teach children, is that bad? No, of course not. Contreras returned and is working for children to develop baseball. I love that idea,” Antonio Castro told the ESPN reporter in English during her recent visit to Cuba .

The island seems to be gradually lifting restrictions for high-level athletes that have existed for decades. The Cuban authorities, for example, announced on September 27 that they would allow their athletes to sign in the off season with teams in foreign leagues as long as they play in the Cuban leagues.

The reform seeks to “generate revenue” and “gradually increase wages,” explained the official daily Granma.

The measure is part of the process of market economic reforms being instituted by Raul Castro’s government.

In July, the Cuban Baseball Federation also announced that it had authorized the signing of active Cuban ballplayers with professional clubs abroad with the aim of “inserting Cuban baseball in the world.” Shortly after the authorities allowed the three players to sign with the Mexican professional team the Campeche Pirates.

“Cuba needs change, we are part of the world, we need to change,” Antonio Castro told ESPN.

Fidel-Castro-playing-baseball Antonio Castro’s Father in Earlier Times

fidel-hugo-baseball

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Cuban Workers, Strikes & the Socialist State: Workers do not strike in Cuba – or so it seems

Rogelio Manuel Diaz Moreno, Havana Times, September 13, 2013 |

HAVANA TIMES — In the years immediately following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution (in January 1959), the island’s trade union leadership undertook to do away with the strike as a mechanism for asserting worker demands.

The Cuban Workers’ Federation (CTC) was absorbed by the State apparatus, regulated by the government and controlled by the single-party system which came into being at the time. The government assumed the commitment of brining economic and social progress to the country.

The CTC did its part, and did it well. Though it is true the revolutionary government helped the majority of the population living in abject poverty, putting behind their deplorable living conditions, it is also true that it lost its direction somewhere down the road. This, at least, is the view expressed by Raul Castro, who went as far as saying the country had been taken to the edge of a precipice.

Thus, we have arrived at a situation in which working people do not receive enough, in wages, to be able to get by. That is another statement made by Cuba’s president. Lacking an institution that can organize and represent them, Cuban workers have no means of making any kind of labor-related demands.

They look on the CTC as a mere appendage of their company’s management and of State institutions. Union meetings, for them, are basically an occasion to express support for government and Party directives, calling for more work, less earnings, accepting a lay-off without protesting, etc.

Defending worker rights or calls for public protests, which earn one the reputation of being a troublemaker and pave the road to unemployment, is, of course, out of the question. The State / government is free to do whatever it pleases.

¿Or is there another side to this?

A responsible and courageous attitude on behalf of the CTC’s representatives and members, and an attitude of respect from the State, would be a means of channeling tensions and difficulties and of working towards a consensus around the solutions ultimately imposed on us by reality.

All societies have a rebellious lot. Cuban construction workers may not have approached the CTC to express their grievances, but they did, at one point, stage a de facto strike. In the 1990s, Cuba’s construction companies were practically left without employees. The State had no choice but to substantially improve wages, accommodations for employees, food, and other conditions, in order to repopulate the industry with part of the lost labor force.

A similar situation arose in connection with another difficult job, that of maintaining public order. The government had to re-locate police officers from the eastern provinces to Havana en masse, as nearly no one in the capital was willing to do such a thankless job for the low wages the State was offering. Once again, the State, faced with an inexorable need, had to give in and began paying police officers more decorous salaries.

State farms in Cuba’s countryside also witnessed an exodus of workers. Here, the State didn’t respond by raising salaries but by distributing idle lands to those willing to make an honest living with the sweat of their brows. In the long run, workers again had their way.

Of course, these aren’t “strikes” in the strictly theoretical or academic sense of the word. The loss of teachers, qualified health specialists and high-performance athletes, who either change professions or countries, also does not fit nicely into the Marxist paradigm of proletarian struggle. The theft of goods, raw materials, fuels and other products from any workplace that isn’t rigorously monitored fits this paradigm even less.

When those at the bottom perceive that the strongest and less scrupulous of the lot are the ones who come out on top, they do what they can, even if it’s not in the textbook and isn’t exactly heroic. The dominant class, at the top, tightens the screws in response, and the result is a kind of arm wrestling match where the one who can hold out the longest wins.

The Party bureaucracy and its servile underlings still find it hard to accept that working people have rights and value. They squeeze as much as they can out of them in every sphere. They try different strategies to ride out the storm or confuse their opponents, depending on the sector: they mobilize workers through the Food Program, launch intensive teacher training courses, re-locate construction workers, police officers and teachers to other regions and tolerate or encourage the broadcasting of alienating and superficial videos through the mass media.

Unfavorable productivity rates are hidden behind a thick curtain of demagogy and flattering figures are extolled without limits. All the while, workers are required to show their unconditional support for the government if they have any hopes of getting ahead, working abroad or earning a very limited bonus.

A string of tiresome political campaigns – as oppressively dense as they can be thrown together – are used so as to drain people of the energy or will to think about changing the (dysfunctional) way in which things work in the country.

At certain points in time, more material incentives are made available in given jobs and, when a more or less precarious stability is achieved, they are taken away. Where none of this can be put into practice, or where it fails beyond any hope of recovering the sector, or where the government cannot afford to lose the profits to be gained there, they liberalize the sector and make concessions to foreign capital.

The CTC is the most conspicuously absent organization throughout these processes. So much so, that it is evident that Cuba suffers from a degeneration of supposedly grassroots organizations, those which ought to organize and defend the workers.

 

A responsible and courageous attitude on behalf of the CTC’s representatives and members, and an attitude of respect from the State, would be a means of channeling tensions and difficulties and of working towards a consensus around the solutions ultimately imposed on us by reality.

This would pave the way towards a possible raise in worker salaries and the implementation of measures and plans aimed at increasing production, improving services, taking better care of the environment, satisfying community needs and other improvements.

One is more likely to see an apple tree sprout oranges than a privileged class give up its benefits willingly. We probably won’t be able to avoid an intermediate stage of chaos in which the country’s productive structures and services infrastructure are worn down, when hard facts will force many to change their way of thinking.

Those who have stifled, or stood by as others have stifled the ability of Cuban workers to self-manage and organize, bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the incalculable damage to the nation and the people this has brought upon us.

I say this so as not to come off as too much of a radical, and affirm that, since we aspire to build a socialist system, where the means of production are controlled by the workers, what we simply need to do is do away with the country’s bureaucracy in one fell swoop and let the workers manage their workplaces, and the country, as they see fit.

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Cuban Gov. Presents “Favorable” Stats

July 7, 2013

HAVANA TIMES — The Cuban government said on Saturday it is satisfied by the “favorable performance” of the island’s economy in the first half of the year, despite a “slowdown” overall and increased unemployment.

An optimistic minister of the economy, Adel Yzquierdo, painted a “favorable” picture of developments in the island’s centrally planned economy, but pointed to a general decline and reduced growth estimates for this year, in an address to the Cuban parliament.

Yzquierdo presented the legislature with economic performance figures for the first half of 2013. President Raul Castro was also present.

According to the figures, employment in the emerging private sector in Cuba continued to grow in the first half of 2013 while the state sector fell.

Unemployment is expected to grow by 4.2 percent in the state sector in the first half of the year, compared with a growth figure of 8.8 percent in the private sector, according to Yzquierdo’s report.

The forecasts, however, point to a general increase in unemployment because the expected growth in the self employed sector was not reached “, noted Prensa Latina.

The island currently has 400,000 people working in the private sector, the so-called “self-employed”. Over recent years, the government of Raul Castro is implementing a program of economic reforms with market elements that have allowed for an opening of some less specialized trades to private work.The medium-term goal is the progressive reduction of half a million jobs in the bloated state sector, as announced by the government in 2010.

Many of the “self-employed” registered so far, however, are retired or keep their jobs in the state sector while trying to obtain a little other income.

The economy showed an overall a “favorable performance”, said Yzquierdo. Almost all sectors recorded growth, “including trade, transport, communications and manufacturing,” he noted.

Yzquierdo said the Cuban trade balance was positive at the end of the first quarter and pointed to a similar trend for year-end. At the same time, he spoke of a “slowdown” in the global economic situation.

Cuba recently reduced its forecasts for annual growth in 2013 from the 3.6 percent initially estimated to somewhere between 2.5 and 3.0 percent. He emphasized that the evolution of gross domestic product (GDP) has been influenced by the crisis in the international arena.

In the first semester, the island’s economy grew 2.3 percent, according Yzquierdo, despite “external stress”, the “internal weaknesses” and the effects of Hurricane “Sandy”, which swept across the east of Cuba in October 2012.

“Sandy” affected 11 provinces and caused losses of almost 7 billion dollars, according to the minister.

The inaugural session of the eighth legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power closes on, Sunday. Raul Castro is expected to pronounce in a speech to the parliament.

In a Communist Party Central Committee meeting last week, Castro came down hard on what he called “indiscipline and illegalities” in the State apparatus. He will most likely refer to the fight against corruption, one of the banner efforts of his administration.

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