On October 8th, a new attack against the incipient private sector came into force in Havana with new obstacles for the private taxi drivers. Now they have to manage to get new work permits, but first they must sign a contract with the State in order to acquire fuel and also open a bank account.
The bank account allows the regime, at any time, to freeze or confiscate the available funds of the taxi driver for reasons as vague as “improper behavior”. Or the bank can “order” the account holder as to how they should spend their money. Simply put, Havana’s taxi drivers will not be able to operate freely.
From now on, only the drivers that join such State controlled taxi cooperatives will be able to pick up passengers at the main avenues or street interceptions.
Those who do not join can only circulate through secondary streets, therefore they will have fewer clients and no fuel supply will be guaranteed. That’s why taxi driver Rafael Alba, President of the not-legally recognized Cuban Association of Private Transporters, told independent journalists that although most of the “boteros” (Gipsy Cabs) want to remain as freelancers, they have already received threats from the dictatorship that they must prepare for consequences if they don’t adhere to the new rules.
More interest in the state cash flow, than in human misfortunes.
The Cuban government reported that Hurricane Michael affected or collapsed at least 1,080 homes in Pinar del Río. These families will join the other 10,000 who live in precarious shelters from previous hurricanes (in addition to the hundreds of thousands who have already waited for decades in those special shelters for the allocation of a home).
However, the designated President – and non-legalized conga player in New York – Miguel Díaz-Canel, went to Pinar del Río and became very interested in the impact of the storm on the tobacco crops, a main source of hard currency to the State, but he hardly asked for the families that lost their houses.
No doubt Díaz- Canel is more interested in hard currency than the misfortunes of human beings. His priorities are clear. That’s why he was chosen by Raul Castro to become the administrator of the regime. That is the reality of the “revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble” as proclaimed by Fidel Castro in 1959.