04 / 13 / 2011
Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:49pm GMT. By Rosa Tania Valdes. HAVANA, April 12
(Reuters) - Cubans are watching this week's ruling Communist Party
congress closely for new openings to private initiative, above all the
right to freely buy and sell their homes and cars for the first time in
decades.
A return to pre-revolution private property rights is not on the cards
at the April 16-19 party meeting, but there are widely-held hopes the
island's highest political body will ease regulations many Cubans view
as unjust.
"It's time that one be able to sell what one has. Cars and houses are
property, but only formally, because we can do almost nothing with
them," said pensioner Antonio Garcia.
While there is legal home ownership in socialist Cuba, property owners
cannot lawfully sell their houses. They can only do a swap, or
"permuta," for another home, supposedly of equal value.
A thriving "permuta" market exists, and it is not unusual for money to
be exchanged, but only underneath the table.
Car ownership in Cuba is permitted for a relatively privileged few,
among them artists and athletes who have worked abroad, and doctors who
have served overseas medical missions.
There is an exception for cars that pre-date the 1959 Revolution, mostly
vintage American models that can be bought and sold freely by anyone.
Long gone from roads in the rest of the world, they are still widely
used as taxis in Cuba.
President Raul Castro has spoken of the need to loosen the government's
hand in Cuban life as he moves to modernize the Soviet-style economy.
The party congress starting on Saturday is expected to rubber-stamp his
liberalizing reforms.
Opening up home and car sales even a little would be popular with Cubans.
But how far the party's first congress in 14 years will go, if at all,
in opening up such sales is not known. The expectations are that changes
may be limited, but helpful.
After succeeding his older brother Fidel Castro as president in 2008,
Raul Castro berated the "excess of prohibitions and legal measures" that
had developed since the 1959 revolution.
In a speech to the Cuban parliament in December, he used automobiles to
make the point that the state should not involve itself in transactions
between individuals.
"If I have a car, an old car or whatever ... and it's mine, I have the
right to sell it to whoever I want," he said.
The month before that, he unveiled a 32-page booklet of guidelines for
Cuba's planned economic changes that include a proposal to "apply
flexible formulas for the trading, buying, selling and renting of houses."
Many believe, for example, the party will maintain the "permuta" as the
only way to trade a house, but that currently illegal additional
monetary payments could be legalized.
Regarding cars, the party could do something as simple as allowing
vehicles of a more recent vintage to be freely bought and sold.
Cuba's restrictive rules on cars and homes arose for various reasons,
but particularly because its communist leaders have long believed that
private ownership can lead to social inequality and so such commerce
should be restricted.
But Raul Castro, looking to stimulate Cuba's struggling economy, is
encouraging more private initiative and the idea that greater
productivity should be rewarded, within limits, with greater material
benefits.
The guidelines for the congress make clear that even with a relaxation
of rules "the concentration of property in a corporate or natural person
will not be permitted."
Determined to reduce state spending, Castro wants to slash 1.3 million
jobs from government payrolls and cut subsidies and food rations that
Cubans have received for decades.
"If what they say is true, I'm going to trade my house, which is big,
for a small one and the money I make I'm going to invest in a cafeteria
where I can spend calmly, without financial worries, my old age," said
Margarita Herrera, a state employee whose job could soon be cut.
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