Planning of the Cuban economy away from the vision of short-term

“We are already in a position to project, on a solid foundation and confidence in the future development until 2030, an issue to which we will pay the required attention during 2014,” said the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of the Councils of State and Ministers.

Undoubtedly, such a step, parallel to the updating of the Cuban economic model, involves a radical change in the mentality of the political, administrative and business cadres at all levels of management, as, not infrequently, planning has been directed to solve a local or transitory problem under the constraints imposed by the market, the global crisis, the imperialist blockade, climate change and our own internal weaknesses.

Not that henceforth those many adverse events will disappear, to say we can now foresee the country’s development in the long term; that taking them into account precisely we can adjust our budgets and plans so we always find solutions or potential to advance each year over the previous, with well-defined goals and a climate of efficiency, organization and control.

For example, today Cuba, with 18.3 % of its population over 60 years, according to the Census of Population and Housing 2012, is one of the oldest countries in Latin America and it is also anticipated to also be in the world by 2050, and to meet that objective situation from an already developed welfare state, labour, demographic, improving health facilities, training of geriatricians and preparation of the population, among other policies.

But at this crucial time of planning, since the beginning of the Revolution itself was the basis for development of the country, ending those burdens or those deficiencies that hamper the relations between these actors and society, as is the chain of defaults, an end its decrease in 2013 by 62 %.

How many times have we heard that for lack of foresight, of objective calculating costs and expenses, comprehensive analysis, control and intolerance of wrongdoing, organizational problems in the settlement and recruitment, to name a few, such plans were not fulfilled or such an issue was not taken into account?

A long-term development program is not the same annual plan

The first of the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution, approved in 2011 at the Sixth Congress of the PCC, said that the socialist planning system will continue to be the main pathway for the management of the national economy.

On July 7, 2013, at the regular session of the Cuban Parliament, Vice President of the Ministerial Council Marino Murillo, head of the Committee on Development and Guidelines Implementation, clarified that a program of long-term development is not the same as an annual plan for the economy.

“The structural problems of the economy cannot be solved from year to year and in the short- term,” he said then, and immediately argued:

“Structural problems of the economy are those which the business system alone is not capable of solving and policy needs long-term government to fix them. These are problems that the individual will of all employers, of different economic actors are not going to be solved, and policies are required, with expressions on concrete plans to be transforming, solving. Therefore it is important to have a program of long-term development.”

Before the Cuban deputies Murillo reported that they have worked, and had advanced in the development of two important documents, one was just that and the other that of the conceptualization of the model of economic development.

Now, in the last session of the National Assembly, the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee stated that the terms and policies of the former should be ready by 2015.

Raul has repeatedly insisted on building a socialist, prosperous and sustainable society, and that presupposes taking, with enough time, policies aimed at raising the quality of life and promoting the preservation and development of the system.

The Guidelines are the basis of everything we aspire to in the medium and long term, because socialism is public ownership of the basic means of production; prosperity refers to the state of personal satisfaction, and sustainability in the ability to keep that society itself in the economic, social and environmental.

But also equivalent to development, because what does not develop does not hold, and to achieve all that, we cannot, in planning, follow the short-term vision, and even worse, conditioned by emergencies and contingencies.

Translated by: Daysi Olano
Revised by ESTI