The dictatorship of cubana imposed a control on the citizens of Havana that forces them to buy only in stores in the municipality where they reside

The provincial regime of Havana announced on Tuesday that, starting next Thursday, and due to “the existing situation with the availability of products”, citizens of the capital will only be able to buy from state stores in the municipality where they reside.

In the note, the Havana authorities stated that the objective of the measure is “to make sales more viable, achieve greater equity and consequently reduce the agglomeration of people in establishments”.

In this way, all products in the stores of the Caribe and Cimex chain - both state - will be controlled and regulated by the Government. In addition, the purchase will be recorded in the citizens' supply book.

Another measure to be implemented from Thursday will be the organization of sales cycles for controlled products. Although, clarifies the note, they will be carried out “in accordance with the real possibilities of supply and logistics”.

The so-called municipalization was already applied on the island during the hardest times of the pandemic, and now it falls at a time when there is a shortage of basic products for Cuban households.

Recently, Cimex admitted that there is a shortage of diapers in the country. The Government has also accepted that production of goods such as pork and sugar is below expectations.

The island regime submitted in February to the National Assembly of People's Power (Parliament, unicameral) a proposal for a food sovereignty law aimed at increasing agricultural production and thus reducing its dependence on imports.

The island (with 11.2 million inhabitants) imports between 60 and 70 per cent of the food it consumes with an estimated expenditure of more than 2 billion dollars a year, according to official data.

So far, the measure does not affect stores that sell in foreign exchange, often unattainable for the average citizen.

The combination of the pandemic, the tightening of the sanctions of the economic embargo imposed by the US on Cuba, and errors in macroeconomic management have led to shortages of basic products, shortages, partial dollarization of the economy and high inflation.

(With information from EFE)

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