Cuba faces toilet paper shortage
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@MiamiHerald.com
There's good news and bad news in Cuba.
The bad news: There's a shortage of toilet paper, and officials in
Havana say it will not ease until the end of the year.
The good news: Day-old copies of the Communist party's newspaper Granma,
a traditional substitute, are available for less than a U.S. penny. And
that's six to eight full, if rough, pages per day.
Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial
crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts
in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in
electricity and imports of raw materials.
But CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria says that ``at the bottom of this
toilet paper shortage is Cuba's continuing commitment to its bizarro
world of socialist economics.''
``Cuba's disastrous economy would be a joke were it not for the poverty
it has perpetuated among millions of Cubans,'' Zakaria said in a video
commentary posted last week. ``The whole country is stagnating. Fifty
percent of its arable fields are going unfarmed. First and second year
college students work one month out of the year in agriculture.''
``It's insane farm policies lead to frequent shortages of fruit,
vegetables and other basic food needs, shortages even more serious than
toilet paper,'' he added. ``And all those programs that they have held
up for years as successes of the communist revolution -- free education
for all through college, universal health care -- well, Raúl Castro just
announced they're going to have to make cuts in all of these.''
``Meanwhile the average Cuban still earns less than . . . $20 per
month,'' he concluded. ``Now, capitalism has its problems, as we have
all seen. But at least we're not running out of toilet paper.''
The toilet paper shortage is no joking matter for Cubans.
Toilet paper is not included in the ration card that covers basic goods
at highly subsidized prices, so Cubans have long been forced to buy
their supplies at so-called ``hard currency stores'' or use alternatives
-- Chinese and North Korean magazines have been a favorite because of
their soft paper.
On Tuesday, a pack of four Cuban-manufactured toilet paper rolls was
selling in Havana stores for the equivalent of about 28 pesos, or about
two days' salary for the average worker.
``Right now almost all the stores are out of it, and it's a miracle that
I found it,'' said a Havana retiree, who asked for anonymity to avoid
problems with authorities, in a telephone interview from Miami.
Cuban officials quoted earlier this month in the official Radio Rebelde
predicted ``an important importation of toilet paper'' by the end of the
year ``to supply this demand that today is presenting problems.''
The Productos Sanitarios Proa factory in Matanzas province also produces
toilet paper, branded ``hygienic and ecological.'' Many Cuban factories
have suffered from shortages of imported raw materials and
government-forced closings to save on electricity.
But the government-imposed closings of factories and offices to save on
electricity may ironically also be helping to resolve the toilet paper
shortage, according to the Havana retiree.
Many copies of Granma and other newspapers sent to distribution points
for later delivery to factories and offices are not being picked up when
the intended recipients are closed, the retiree said, and are being sold
to anyone else.
Lots of retirees, he added, are hitting pre-dawn lines at those
distribution points to buy 10-15 copies of both daily and older versions
of the newspapers for bathroom use, wrapping garbage and other household
uses.
The retirees pay 20 Cuban cents per copy -- about .007 U.S. cents -- and
re-sell it to neighbors for up to 20 Cuban pesos, or about 71 U.S. cents.
The price of 20 Cuban cents per copy is the same for the day's edition
and old copies, the retiree said, ``because they all have the same use.''
Cuba faces toilet paper shortage - Breaking News - MiamiHerald.com (26
August 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/1203953.html
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