Workers at a trade and gastronomy enterprise in Manuel Tames, Guantanamo, have gone two months without wages, highlighting a severe provincial liquidity crisis.
Yoel Pérez García in Radio Guantanamo Review
Officials acknowledged workers at the Commerce and Gastronomy enterprise in Manuel Tames, Guantanamo, have received no salary for two months, as recognized this Friday by the Radio Guantanamo station when reviewing the province’s operational and socio-economic analysis meeting. The atraso fue abordado durante el encuentro encabezado por Yoel Pérez García, primer secretario del Partido Comunista en Guantánamo, junto con las principales autoridades provinciales y municipales mediante audioconferencia. While official reports confirmed the existence of a delay in wage payments to workers of that enterprise, authorities did not specify the exact causes of the non-payment or outline concrete measures to resolve the situation. The shortfall compounds existing social grievances examined in the meeting across the province, including difficulties in the water supply in various localities and the effectiveness of payment to retirees with the contribution of the non-state sector. The information disseminated by the authorities did not specify when the payment of back wages to the Commerce and Gastronomy workers of Manuel Tames will be restored. Systemic Liquidity Pressures and Bank Shortages Across Guantanamo
Banco de Crédito y Comercio Cash Capture Deficits
The payroll freeze reflects a deeper cash shortage that strikes the eastern province, which is the most recent expression of a liquidity crisis. In July, authorities admitted that the province’s banks lacked sufficient cash to cover their operational needs and warned that they will apply sanctions to state and private merchants who refuse to accept payments by electronic transfer. The Banco de Crédito y Comercio (Bandec), for example, only managed to capture just over 35 percent of the nearly 15 million pesos per day that it needs to operate. To bypass the incapacitated banking system, the provincial government resorted to a solution that independent economists have described as improvised, which is to mobilize 113 private businesses so that they assume the cash payment of pensions to more than 3,000 retirees. The provincial director of the Popular Savings Bank, Yaritza León Mustelier, described that participation as a humanitarian interest in providing the important service to society, as collected by the official newspaper Venceremos. Meanwhile, massive crowds are registered in front of the Popular Savings Bank in Guantanamo, where citizens try to withdraw cash without success. Venceremos acknowledged that it had stopped being a banking difficulty to become a social problem when describing the situation in the province. Widespread Wage Delays and Camagüey Precedents
Guáimaro and Vicente Chávez Mixed School Reports
The pattern of non-payment in the Commerce and Gastronomy sector is repeated in other provinces. A public denunciation collected in August alerted that employees of the same sector in Guáimaro, in the province of Camagüey, accumulated almost six months without collecting, despite the fact that the Provincial Bank had allocated 90 million pesos for those payments that never reached the workers. Also in Camagüey, teachers of the Vicente Chávez mixed school in Vertientes denounced in July two months without salary, where the only official response they received was “no hay dinero”. These delays arrive alongside official pay actions. The government approved in July an increase in the minimum wage from 2,100 to 3,210 pesos per month, but independent economists warn that this figure turns out to be laughable compared to a cost of living estimated at more than 50,000 pesos per month per person. Economic Realities and the Wider Wage Crunch
The compounding impact of frozen salaries and cash scarcity leaves affected workers with few immediate options as they face long lines and financial strain. As provincial leadership continues its operational reviews, neither the exact timeframe for resolving the Manuel Tames arrears nor the broader strategy for recapitalizing local bank vaults has been publicly established. For now, workers across the affected sectors remain without a definitive schedule to recover their earnings.
