Over 200 Agricultural Cooperatives Closed in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 21 (acn) A total of 298 agricultural cooperatives were dissolved in Cuba following their incapacity to have appropriate financial performance as it was announced in a meeting of the National Agriculture and Forest Workers Union.

Union general secretary Nestor Hernandez explained the decision followed an evaluation in each Cuban province by the National Bank of Cuba, the Finance and Prices Ministry, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the provincial and municipal governments.

Known as Basic Units for Cooperative Production, these units operate under a modality created in 1993 based on the use of state-owned land in usufruct by former state workers who develop common production.

Hernandez said that all those cooperatives had due dated debts, inefficient entrepreneurial management, poor use of resources like the land, machinery and thus a low agricultural output, along with organizational problems.

Meanwhile, Agriculture minister Gustavo Rodriguez said the idea is not that of closing cooperatives but strengthening their management capacities, through better performance of their members and their direct relationship to other entities based on efficient use of contracts and control mechanism.

Cuban economy needs the cooperatives to be efficient and viable in order to increase food production for the people and contribute to the replacement of imports, said the minister.

The meeting also reviewed 17 measures adopted by the government to be implemented in all remaining 1 thousand 666 cooperatives in the country. Concerns at the center of discussion included the high cost of resources, inappropriate application of a five-percent tax on the sales and services, delays in the availability of resources at shops as well as the delivery of fuel.

The General Secretary of the Cuban Workers´ Confederation, Ulises Guilarte recalled that the economic loss reported in the country up to June due to inefficient cooperatives claimed to 10 million pesos (equal in dollars), which affected productions such as coffee, milk among others.