Cuba’s communist government has long prided itself on its ability to meet the basic needs of the island’s population, despite persistent evidence to the contrary.
The contrast between the official government line and reality was brought into sharp relief this week when a government minister went on television and addressed the issue of people begging on the streets.
The minister, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera, who oversaw labor and social security, said on Monday that the island’s beggars were faking poverty to make “easy” money.
The backlash was swift in a country mired in economic misery, where many struggle to afford food. Barely 24 hours later Ms. Feitó was out of a job. The government said she had resigned because of her lack of “objectivity and sensitivity.”
While the Communist Party remains firmly in charge, Cuba’s government has faced intensifying anger among ordinary Cubans who have lost patience with the six-decade old socialist system imposed by the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
Ms Feitó’s ouster was usually fast by the standards of Cuba’s often glacial bureaucracy.
“In the past, other ministers have said very unpopular things and have not been forced to resign,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a political analyst and retired Cuban diplomat who lives in Havana. “What is unexpected in this case is the rapid popular reaction and the very quick reaction of the president.”
Cuba’s economy has been in free fall for several years, marked by runaway inflation, an erosion of social services and a shortages of food and basic household items.
Cuban officials have long blamed the country’s economic woes on the 60-year-old U.S. trade embargo, which makes it harder — and more expensive — for the government to import essential goods.
Ms Feitó’s televised comments went viral on social media, and many saw them as emblematic of the government’s failure to address frustration with the deepening financial crisis.
“We have seen people who appear to be beggars, but when you look at their hands, when you look at the clothes those people wear, they are disguised as beggars,” Ms Feitó said. “In Cuba, there are no beggars.’’
“They have found an easy way of life to make money and not to work as is appropriate,” she added.
The next day, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said her remarks lacked compassion and ignored the reality in Cuba.
“These people, who we sometimes describe as homeless or linked to begging, are actually concrete expressions of the social inequalities and the accumulated problems we face,” the president said.
But the political damage had been done. Ms Feitó’s words exposed what many Cubans have long concluded — that their government is out of touch with the lives of ordinary people who struggle to make ends meet while their leaders cling to a state-run economic model and one-party rule.
Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist and university professor in Colombia, noted that Cuba does not publish official poverty data.
“It is very hypocritical of the Cuban government officials to criticize the minister when they are the first ones who refuse to call it poverty and misery,” Mr. Vidal said. “Hiding poverty has been a state policy.”
Ms Feitó also suggested that people seen hunting through garbage for bottles and other containers were cheating the state by recycling glass and plastic “to resell without paying taxes.”
Many Cubans say the minister’s comments revealed a deep-rooted problem in Cuba’s governance.
“Replacing a minister won’t solve the problem of a system that doesn’t work, nor will it help the poor and homeless in Cuba,” said the Cuban economist Ricardo Torres, who left the island in 2021 and now teaches at American University in Washington.
The labor minister’s departure comes only a week after another wave of popular outrage forced the government to partially roll back a hike in prices for cellphone data plans.
On Wednesday, in an effort perhaps to assuage anger over the former minister’s comments, the government announced a 50 percent increase in state pensions starting in September. But that hike will do little to improve the ability of pensioner’s to afford the cost of living. The increase would raise a typical pension from about 2,000 Cuban pesos, about $5 on Cuba’s informal currency market, to 3,000 pesos, or $7.50.
To make matters worse, the country’s aging energy grid is crumbling, and neighborhoods across the island have been experiencing prolonged daily power cuts. This week, residents of Havana were informed that there would be increased rationing of electricity and the daily blackouts would go from four to 10 hours a day.
Frustration with the electricity rationing is so wide and deep that complaints are creeping into the usually compliant state media outlets, a rare development in Cuba.
“With this horrendous heat and no electricity, most of the day you can’t even guarantee food or sleep, and no further explanation is needed, just concrete solutions,” wrote Delia Proenza, a columnist for a provincial state newspaper, that was also posted as a video.
“This is hard,’’ she added “and the worst thing is that there is no end in sight.”
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