HAVANA, Cuba, – Once again, floor-shammies –that indispensable item with which homes and other places inhabited by humans are kept clean- have disappeared from the retail stores throughout Cuba. The country’s rulers are bent on producing them domestically, However, out of four factories equipped to manufacture this product, only one is operant, which means that production will not meet consumer demand.
A recent article in the official daily Granma revealed that a shortage of raw materials, mostly imported, has influenced the low levels of production. The country does not have the necessary funds with which to import these raw materials. Also, the technological obsolescence of Cuba’s industry inhibits production.
The plan for 2021 projected a production of 3 million floor-shammies, but only 2.4 million were manufactured, and only half of those was delivered to the Ministry of Domestic Commerce (MINCIN) for sale to the population. The rest of the shammies was delivered to Tourism and Public Health –especially to Tourism- which classify as main consumers of this product.
Things being what they are, for 2022 the plan is for the sole floor-shammies factory –Sarex, in Villa Clara province- to manufacture 900,000 units. This is a very small quantity of shammies, and will only worsen the shortages of this product.
It should not surprise us that the Cuban government continues to prioritize tourism at the expense of the Cuban population, just as it has done since it came to power. Now we learn about the floor shammies. Maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rerouting basic-need products to the tourism sector. The government takes these products from the population: meats, shellfish, tubers, fruits and vegetables, for example, must be added to the list.
It isn’t hard to understand, therefore, that a majority of Cuban citizens feel animosity
toward foreign tourists who come to Cuba to consume what little there is in the country. This feeling is made worst by the public’s knowledge that the earnings from tourism end up in the personal coffers of the military, chief among them General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, that dark and mysterious character who, for lack of a better name, has been labeled as president Díaz-Canel’s advisor. Never has an advisor been so powerful!
It is clear that the ruling elite wishes for tourism to once again reach the number of foreign visitors that will allow the country to recuperate part of the hard currency that today it lacks. However, it will not be an easy task. First of all, there are many deficiencies in the island’s tourist facilities, and second, because of the high competition the tourist sector poses in the rest of the Caribbean.
In order to have an idea of the Cuban debacle, from 3,716,000 tourists that came to Cuba in 2019, only 1,084,000 came in 2021. This drop cannot be blamed solely on the coronavirus, for the pandemic also affected the Dominican Republic and still, close to 5 million foreign tourists visited the neighboring island last year.
The Cuban regime will say that at least there are floor-shammies in the hotels. It doesn’t matter that the population will have none. Hotels will get cleaned, but homes will remain dirty.
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