Cuban deputy PM checks housing program in westernmost province

HAVANA, Cuba, May 17 (ACN) Cuban deputy prime minister Ramiro Valdes Menendez checked today in Pinar del Rio the recovery program of houses affected by Hurricane Ian when it passed through that western province last September.

On Twitter, the deputy prime minister said that in the meeting, at the Pinar del Rio government headquarters, those present agreed to speed up the execution of the buildings by increasing local production.

According to Guerrillero newspaper on Facebook, in the meeting the Commander of the Revolution learned about the production of clay, blocks and Creole tiles in the territory.

Valdes Menendez insisted on knowing the resources and how to use them, at the same time he oriented the work, not to what has been done, but to what has been left undone and called to give importance to order and the need for unionization, especially with the new economic actors.

Dilaila Diaz Fernandez, director of construction materials of the Ministry of Construction, informed that out of 189 lines necessary to build a house, Pinar del Rio only produces 36, of which 13 are not fulfilled and in the rest it maintains very low production levels.

According to Tele Pinar, to date, the province has managed to provide solutions to 24,360 of the 90,394 houses damaged by the powerful meteor last September, a figure which represents 27 % of the total damage.

The province of Pinar del Rio was the most affected by the passage of Ian, which hit Cuban territory as a category three hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, out of a maximum of five.