Havana Cuba. – “I go out to the streets to look for money, food, clothes, shoes: whatever people can give me,” says Zoila Gómez Velázquez, an 84-year-old woman from Holguín whose economic and health situation worsens every day.
“My checkbook of 1,500 pesos per month is very little. That is nothing for the way prices are in this country,” she says, and exemplifies the shortage of bread and its high cost in the informal market.
“When I have money I buy bread from street vendors for 120 pesos. He is small and expensive, but they are the only ones who have him because there is almost never one in the Government bakery,” laments the old woman.
In Cuba, the average salary and pension are 4,000 and 1,700 pesos per month, respectively, values that do not cover the high cost of living in the midst of rampant inflation.
“Currently more than 70% of a Cuban family’s expenses are to purchase food,” said President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez at the annual work meeting of the Ministry of the Food Industry (MINAL) held this month.
At the end of September, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) indicated in its VI Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba that extreme poverty in Cuba had increased 13 percentage points in one year, reaching an alarming 88%. . The document also highlights the disapproval of 86% towards the management of the Cuban Government.
According to the OCDH, 88% of Cubans live on less than USD 1.90 per day, a figure established internationally to determine the threshold of extreme poverty. The food crisis and inflation have significantly affected the economy of most households in Cuba. The report also indicates that 70% of respondents are concerned about the food crisis.
It’s not just spent on food.
Zoila Gómez Velázquez’s expenses are not limited to food. “In addition to food, which is very expensive, I also need to buy personal hygiene, clothes, shoes, pay for electricity and water,” she explained.
However, the SAF provides a deplorable service, an evil that has persisted since its creation in 2007, when the Government established the guidelines for the operation of this system.
The menu, says the old woman, is “always the same and of poor quality.” “The food there is terrible, they always give us poorly prepared peas. What they give us is a sancocho that not even the pigs will eat,” she says.
Due to a hip fracture, Zoila walks with difficulty. “I use a cane to keep my balance, but I also have a skin disease on my left leg that doctors don’t know what it is and it bothers me,” says the octogenarian woman.
The interviewee believes that the elderly are the most affected by the crisis in Cuba. “We old people don’t have food, we don’t have clothes, we don’t have shoes, we don’t have anything. At the winery they only sell two little books of rice per month per book [de abastecimiento], that with that no one eats. “We are starving,” says the old woman.
Zoila is alone: two years ago her 36-year-old daughter died due to uterine cancer. “My case is worse because I live alone and if you don’t have anyone to give you anything or help you from abroad, as happens to me, then it is worse. How am I going to continue living?,” she asks herself.
“I am 84 years old and I do not see the possibility of this country improving, this is getting worse every day,” he concludes.
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2024-03-31 19:00:40
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