Sales Of Building Materials Under Scrutiny

Sales Of Building Materials Under Scrutiny / 14ymedio
Posted on September 1, 2015

14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2015 – When there is sand, there are no
bricks," protests a lady this week outside the market in Havana's La
Timna neighborhood. People's dissatisfaction with regards to quality,
quantity and variety of construction materials continues unresolved
despite having been addressed at the accountability meetings of the
People's Power throughout the country and in the national press.

The situation shows no signs of improvement despite the annual
application of the Program for Local Production and Sales of
Construction Materials, which began this Tuesday for the seventh
consecutive year, starting in Guantanamo province and concluding on
October 15 in Isla de la Juventud, according to the schedule published
in the official press.

The aspects to be evaluated are the level of management the strategy for
assuring that the 2015 plan targets will be met in each entity, and
specifics regarding the 2016 program. In previous years the agenda has
included other issues such as quality, innovation and environmental
protection.

However, the fact that they have already published the dates and times
for each local inspection distorts the picture, because it allows the
offenders to be prepared and to eliminate, at least for this one day,
the irregularities that affect their services.

Customers' worst criticisms are not only about the supplies, but also
about the mechanisms of sales, to which they attribute the appearance of
resellers who manage to divert state transports haul the materials –
aggregates, cement, steel, granite tiles and plumbing fixtures – to send
their cargoes directly to the black market with the presumed complicity
of the administrative employees.

The head of the National Group for Local Production and Sales of
Construction Materials, Manuel Tomas Vazquez, announced that in the
previous evaluation process only five provinces were certified "good":
Matanzas, Villa Clara, Ciego de Avila, Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba.

Five were rated "regular" – Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, Sancti Spiritus,
Holguin and Granma – while in the "bad" category were Havana, Mayabeque,
the Isla de la Juventud Special Municipality, Cienfuegos, Camagüey and
Guantánamo.

In the last session of the National Assembly, Vice President Ramiro
Valdes Menendez criticized the irregularities and illegalities that
threaten the production, transportation and sale of building materials.

Source: Sales Of Building Materials Under Scrutiny / 14ymedio |
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