14ymedio, Havana, 8 January 2024 — For the third consecutive year, the distribution of the ration books in Cuba is delayed. The reason is the same again: the lack of paper to make them. In some neighborhoods of Havana, the distribution has been intermittent. In Luyanó, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, they have arrived, but in other areas, such as Cayo Hueso, in Central Havana, they have not.
They had already warned Olga in December, when, after losing the document on the street, she had to go and renew it from her corresponding Office of the Consumer Registry. “The employee told me not to worry because they weren’t going to give out the books anyway,” the old woman tells 14ymedio. “She didn’t know if it was going to be in January, in February or if it would actually happen, because they were ’very late.’”
In Nuevo Vedado, a municipality of the Plaza de la Revolución, the ration store clerk told his customers that “it will arrive next month.” Meanwhile, they are writing down the orders on the January sheet of the 2023 ration book. “For the little they give, there is plenty of paper,” Roberto, a resident of the place, protests with sarcasm.
Although the panorama is similar in other provinces – they have not given out the ration books in Sancti Spíritus, in Mayabeque, in Villa Clara, in Santiago de Cu