Cuba forecasts to solve its housing deficit in 10 years

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 22 (ACN) With the implementation of the Housing Policy, Cuba estimates to recover its housing deficit in 10 years, officials from the Ministry of Construction said in this Havana.

According to the Cubadebate website, the directors, who participated this Tuesday in the Roundtable primetime show, pointed out that this policy gathers a set of actions to rescue the strong deterioration existing in all the provinces - some of greater incidence than others such as Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín - and, in a greater sense, the eastern ones.

Vivian Rodríguez Salazar, Director General of Housing, explained that this strategy takes as its starting point the data of the housing fund in the country until June 2017, to which was added an analysis of the situation on the island before the triumph of the Revolution.

She specified that after the revolutionary triumph and to date, in Cuba more than two million 568 thousand houses have been built, while currently the amount of them are over 3.8 million.

She added that only five percent of them are in precarious conditions, such as dirt floors, critical buildings, for whose gradual solution the Politics is designed.

She said that the initiative also aims to stimulate the construction of housing in urban areas, and stabilize the population that today migrates to large cities or provincial capitals.

Regarding the state of the housing fund, Rodriguez Salazar reported that there is a deficit of 929,695 homes, of which 527,000 must be built and 402,000 rehabilitated.

Except in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, she added, it is necessary to carry out 60% of the constructive actions by means of own effort and 40% by the state. In the two provinces mentioned above, state intervention would be greater due to the complexities of those territories, she said.

Tomas Vázquez Enríquez, director of the Program for Local Production and Sale of Construction Materials, reported that more than 132 thousand tons of cement have been used this year, and almost seven thousand tons of steel, which speaks of the priority that this strategy has, which is still insufficient.

He highlighted that the Program is in the 168 municipalities of the country to some extent, some have been very slow and others have regressed, but there is a work system that contemplates an evaluation twice a year, he added.

According to Carlos Méndez Trujillo, director of Balance of the Directorate General of Housing, the policy of this sector also provides for ensuring those supplies that cannot be produced locally through industry.

The demand for resources requires an increase and efficient use in the current productions of the National Industry, with the expansion of production capacities in cement, aggregates, floors, sanitary furniture and other materials, said the official.