By Francisco Acevedo
HAVANA TIMES – Do you remember last week when I discussed our dear Miguel Díaz-Canel’s podcast dedicated to the topic of transportation?
In it, the minister, Eduardo Rodríguez Davila, mentioned four distortions in his office. They cannot use the foreign currency they generate; fares are paid in national currency; state-run management models have a different management formula compared to private ones, and the resources allocated for plans do not align with the intended results.
Nothing new under the sun, but the word has become trendy, and this week Prime Minister Manuel Marrero adopted it as a banner during a visit to Camagüey.
“The first thing we need to look at are our distortions,” Marrero said, and then urged people to seek alternatives because we cannot remain idle, waiting for the United States embargo to be lifted.
Unfortunately, he does not begin by applying this to himself, as the Cuban economy and the country in general are filled with distortions. Those who do not want an alternative are precisely those in power. For them, all creativity is aimed at trying to legitimize and sustain a model that can no longer hold up, rather than making a real shift and allowing others to try something different.
“The first thing we have to eliminate is our self-blockade,” and as always, the ball is thrown to the other side without considering that censorship, repression, and dictatorship, to sum it up in a one word, have been the main cause of the failure of the centralized communist project.
All the criticisms regarding freedoms weigh heavily in the rest of the world for someone to decide to give credit to Cuba, and of the few who endorse the government, a large percentage rem