“It’s hellish!” Plague Lazaro Diaz, 59, after more than a day of waiting outside a gas station in Havana. Cuba is again suffering from a fuel shortage, but according to its inhabitants, the current crisis is the worst experienced in years.
Vehicles are less numerous every day on the wide avenues of the capital, while the queues of cars stretch for hundreds of meters, sometimes kilometers, around service stations, with direct consequences on economic and social life. from the country.
Five universities, including one in Havana, have suspended face-to-face classes for the week, while the scarcity of public transport forces many employees to resort to teleworking.
Recently, the public electricity company asked its customers to send a photo of their meters, its agents being unable to move, for lack of gasoline, to do the usual readings.
But Lazaro Diaz, a freelance motorcycle courier, has no choice: “I don’t have gas, I can’t work. The day before yesterday I didn’t work, yesterday I didn’t worked,” he laments.
Yet accustomed to fuel shortages, the Cubans assure that this crisis, which has continued to worsen since the end of March, is the worst in years, with motorists who do not hesitate to wait in front of empty stations, without know when they will be supplied. Not to mention skyrocketing black market prices.
Concerts, baseball tournaments, the list of cancellations linked to the crisis is growing daily. On Tuesday, authorities announced that of the traditional May Day rally in Havana’s Revolution Square, where thousands of participants usually arrive by bus from all over the city.
Residents of the center of the capital are called to gather on foot on the Malecon promenade, while the others will take part in activities in their neighborhoods.
“It’s (the crisis) the most critical” for years, confirms Edgar Sanchez, a 43-year-old sports trainer, posted for seven hours near a station. “We depend on the” outside world, he said, lamenting that Cuba has been “financially blocked” since 1962 by the American embargo.
In mid-April, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel admitted that he did not know “clearly” how “to get out of this situation”.
According to the head of state, the island of 11 million inhabitants, which has 600,000 vehicles, currently consumes “less than 400 tonnes” of fuel every day, compared to between 500 and 600 usually.
The Cuban president explained, without naming them, that the countries that supply oil to Cuba have not respected their commitments because they themselves are faced with a “complex energy situation”.
For Jorge Piñon, a specialist in energy policy at the University of Texas, these remarks allude to Venezuela, ally and main supplier of Cuba, whose shipments have fallen from 100,000 barrels / day in 2021 to around 57,000 in the first quarter of 2023.
“The problem is that Cuba has no money and cannot pay in cash for this oil” which it barters with Caracas for teachers and doctors.
In addition to the 40,000 barrels / day produced locally, Russia supplied in 2022 “three or four shipments of crude oil”, and Algeria supplies a little “from time to time”, according to Jorge Piñon.
Faced with this situation, the government decided to “turn off the tap” by rationing stocks, he adds. According to the authorities, the difficulties could continue in May.
In this context, certain sectors are declared priorities, such as tourism, the economic engine of the island before the pandemic and which is trying to revive itself.
A service station in the capital is thus reserved for rental cars and coaches transporting groups, even if this does not prevent a bit of a wait.
Already masters in the use of Whatsapp to solve daily problems in a country plagued by shortages of all kinds, Cubans have created various groups on messaging to order queues, exchange information and tips.
There is something for everyone: taxi drivers, individuals, companies, even diplomats who organize themselves to queue in the capital’s service station which is reserved for them.
04/26/2023 12:20:41 – Havana (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
