Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz reiterated, in the most recent meeting with the country's governors, that the implementation of the measures recently announced "is a task to which we are all going to dedicate ourselves and, for this, it is necessary to update the government's work systems."
 
Cuba is embarking on a new path in its economy after the announcement of measures to correct distortions and boost this sphere in the coming year. It is rectified and solutions are sought, convinced that, in view of the complexity of the economic situation and in order to solve it, "it is necessary to act", to encourage citizen participation and a rigorous control.
 
As the also member of the Political Bureau said, "it is not about shock measures, nor a neoliberal package against the people", but these projections of the Government will allow to move forward with the conviction that this is the right way to get out of the current context, and will contribute to increase the demand regarding the need to work and work well.
 
It was that certainty that also warned the most recent meeting of governors and the intendant of the Isle of Youth, where fundamental issues of the socio-economic reality of the country were analyzed and it was ratified that the challenge of the actions designed -which will be implemented gradually-, is to apply them in an organized manner, evaluate their impacts and adjust the process systematically.
 
Accompanied by members of the Political Bureau Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the National Assembly of People's Power and of the Council of State; and Salvador Valdés Mesa, vice president of the Republic, the Head of Government reiterated that the implementation of the measures "is a task to which we are all going to dedicate ourselves and, for this, it is necessary to update the work systems".
 
IN SEARCH OF MUNICIPAL AUTONOMY
 
During the meeting -held at the Protocol Hall of El Laguito and also attended by the vice prime ministers- information was provided on the main issues evaluated by the Vice President of the Republic with members of the structures of the local administrations of the People's Power in 41 municipalities, in September and October.
 
The purpose of the meetings was to examine the state of implementation of the new structure and its performance in highly relevant tasks such as the Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security Law, the functioning of the contracting committees, the conformation of the local productive systems and the general directives for the prevention and confrontation of crime, corruption, illegalities and social indisciplines.
 
Valdés Mesa pointed out that the exchanges showed a high dynamics of movements of positions of mayors and vice mayors, as well as a lack of preparation of the cadres on the approved policies and the legal norms that implement them. For this reason, he alluded to the importance of completing the positions, stabilizing them and continuing with training in order to increase their competencies, the only way to measure whether the structure is adequate or not.
 
"We have to think very seriously about what a mayor means in a municipality", acknowledged the President of the Parliament and, in view of such reality, he suggested the need to "give tasks to some cadres to go to those most important municipalities we have, if we want to solve the problem".
 
In analyzing this vital issue to achieve the true autonomy of the territories, several participants in the meeting presented a set of criteria related to the accompaniment of the work of the mayor. The governor of Matanzas, Mario Sabines Lorenzo, said that the best mayors in his province are those who have grown and learned in the People's Power and, therefore, it is in the People's Power "where they must be trained".
 
For his part, the governor of Sancti Spíritus, Alexis Lorente Jiménez, also alluded to the figure of the deputy mayor, who "has a high responsibility in the management of programs, which he does not direct, but coordinates at the municipal level, and inevitably has to do with the results that are obtained in general in the provinces".
 
For the mayor of the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud, Adiel Morera Macías, it is urgent to achieve stability in the work team, and at the same time he called attention to the need to "have clarity in the function and mission of each one".
 
Regarding the functioning of the municipal commissions of the Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutritional Security Law, Valdés Mesa referred to the importance of having a real impact on the increase of food supply, a fundamental indicator to measure the effectiveness of this legal norm.
"It is up to the boards of directors to design the work systems, to raise the demand for strict compliance with the regulations and to hold each agency and entity accountable for the fulfillment of their obligations and responsibilities with the implementation of the Law", he pointed out.
 
When reporting on the committees for contracting and price agreement, he explained that, in spite of being constituted in all the municipalities, there is no contracting or control of what is produced and, in this, is the genesis of most of the problems; there is also no impact on prices, being this the issue that weighs the most in the states of opinion of the population in all the municipalities visited.
 
He pointed out that there is a need for greater management of the state enterprises and productive bases of agriculture to assume a greater role in direct commercialization with an impact on prices and, also, to increase the demands and control of the municipal administration councils and the provincial government to enforce the principle that the prices that are agreed and decided are valid for all the economic actors participating in the market.
 
In line with this, the Prime Minister reflected on the need to seek strategies to boost food production and achieve more exigency in complying with what is established.