In Holguín, as in the majority of the Island, private businesses are rapidly replacing dilapidated State warehouses
14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 8 April 2024 — They go from being buildings with peeling facades to looking freshly painted, with bars on the windows and air conditioning inside. The process of leasing shops, offices and state warehouses to the mipymes* (MSMEs, or medium, small and micro-sized enterprises) in Holguín extends, as in Havana and other cities in Cuba, before the eyes of the residents of the city, who face the gradual privatization with expectations and doubts.
In front of the old vehicle workshop of the Comar Base Economic Unit, belonging to the Holguín Fisheries Company, this Friday morning a line of customers was waiting to enter. In the wide warehouse on Aricochea Street, between Maceo and Mártires, you can no longer hear the rattling of the faucets or perceive the smell of fat and fuel that characterized the place.
Now, after a capital remodeling, the Obra Real mipyme is there, with a wide assortment of food, toiletries and household items. In the line, some who arrive for the first time in front of the restored building are astonished. “I almost didn’t recognize it. I passed by here often, and it was covered in grease; it’s totally changed,” a man who was waiting to buy detergent told 14ymedio.
Obra Real has four locations in the city of Holguin, and its catalog includes everything from packages of La Estrella brown sugar, imported from Panama, to fans that are recharged with small solar panels. “The prices are high, but right now I have to come here to buy flour because there is no bread in my bakery,” the man adds.
The bidding process for these private companies to rent a state premises continues to lack dissemination and transparency. “They told me that they are renting the space of the Copextel warehouse on the Carretera Central Calle Martí, in front of the Electric Company, but when I went to ask, they had already ’granted’ it to the owner of several motorcycle workshops,” an entrepreneur interested in the place who asked for anonymity tells this newspaper.
“In this city, when night falls, a space belongs to the State, and when you wake up the next day it’s now under the management of a mipyme but no one knows very well how,” he says. “The rumor is that donations must be made to
