During the Summit of CELAC, in Old Havana I heard when they announced to a police officer on his radio delegations were coming his way and he was ordered to “ensure that in the Cuba Street there wouldn’t be any person meeting the description of scavengers or beggars “.
Obviously when you have visitors you try to show the best of your home but hiding poverty under the carpet does not seem the best option, especially since most of them are elderly looking to offset their meager pensions.
Many jobs that could give more income to the elderly are occupied by young people able to work in any other sector / Photo: Raquel Perez
Paradoxically, the agent and I were a few feet from the statue of the Knight of Paris, a drifter who became famous for being the only one in Havana. It was an achievement that Cuba kept for decades but now is gradually losing.
You don’t need to walk far to see how dramatically the number of old people begging, selling newspapers in the streets, collecting cans of soda or rummaging through garbage collectors looking for something of value has increased.
I know many do not like to talk about it but silence does not make this harsh reality go away, however only serve to further delay the solution of the problem. And nobody has the right to ask us to look the other way.
True, there are limited resources but those that exist are not always shared fairly. The government insists on maintaining a ration book equally subsidizing food for a nouveau riche than a retiree.
And you don’t need to be an economist to figure out that if State aid could be limited to those who really need it; it would increase the amount of food that is given to each person without spending a penny of the national budget.
Knowing who is poor is not complicated in a country where in every block there is a Committee for the Defense of Revolution able to report exactly what neighbor needs subsidies and which can buy food at market prices.
Elderly get in queues from early morning to buy newspapers to resell them later for a little more money. / Photo: Raquel Perez
And there are other cheaper options just for retirees willing and able to continue working. You may give them exclusive access to some activities that do not involve great sacrifice and give good returns as the watching vehicles in parking lots.
Depending on the place, in a parking lot you can earn up to 300 USD per month, equivalent to about 3 basic baskets. The problem today is that many of these positions are occupied by young people of working age who could work somewhere else.
Next to the cashiers in supermarkets in Baja California Sur in Mexico, there are grandparents, dressed in the uniform of the store, which help to put groceries in shopping bags. Tips that they earn help them make ends meet, some of them confessed that they do not receive any retirement money
If you have the will and the imagination the possibilities are endless but must pass over a bureaucracy that places cronies or sell jobs to the highest bidder in an auction where retirees have no chance
The elderly are not the problem
The Cuban economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago said that in Cuba there are 1.8 million pensioners who receive an average of 10 Cuban pesos per month, as the government spends about 3 percent of GDP and that “this problem has no solution on the long term.”
If at this time the State is not able to give seniors a retirement that meets their basic needs it should prioritize at the least subsidies and jobs that allow them to earn a living with dignity.
Already the government announced it will expand the number nursing and elderly homes. No doubt this is good news because in both cases food and proper care of the aged are guaranteed but it is not enough because every year the challenge is greater.
For a nation economically developed this issue is very complex but in a poor country it becomes a challenge with few options, culturally transform society and the economy, or longer life expectancy will become a conviction.
The economic crisis of the 90 collapsed the purchasing power of pensions and grandparents now hit the open market without a penny in their pocket. Their vulnerability is great and will continue to accrue if not acted on swiftly, with imagination and effectiveness.
If the culture of a society is measured by how it treats its weakest members, their collective intelligence could be calculated by the attention given to their elders because today the bells that tolls for them, sooner or later, will sound for each us.
