Tabacuba has a new boss - some Cubans fear for the cigar industry.

[Nino]

Fail at the job of re-organizing the economy, ruin it and be rewarded by leading Tabacuba ...

Some Cubans fear the end of cigars in Cuba.

Marino Murillo, awarded the presidency of Tabacuba after failing with the Ordinance Task
The so-called reform czar assumes his new position in a sector facing severe shortage problems

https://www.14ymedio.com/cuba/Tarea-Ordenamiento-Marino-Murillo-Tabacuba_0_3202479721.html

Some comments :

"In recognition of the disastrous implementation of the Ordinance Task, for which he was the main responsible and whose results are palpable in the daily life of Cubans with more inflation, poverty, etc.", replied a user on twitter.

"Congratulations. It is undoubtedly a recognition for the "excellent" results obtained in 2021. Does not get fired, recycling," said another jokingly accompanying his tweet with an emoticon of sadness.

"Cuban cigars will end," added a tweeter sympathetic to the Archipelago collective. National shame. Only Cuba, the country turned upside down, puts the official representative of an economic disaster at the head of one of the main exporting branches of the country. "

Most users expressed their fear for tobacco, which has been partially disappeared for months and, until the first quarter of 2022, a recovery in the sector is not expected. "Hopefully he won't reorder Tabacuba, or we'll run out of Tobacco," another tweeter ironizes.

[Bigpink]

I'll take any excuse to add more to the stockpile 😁

[NSXCIGAR]

Just a thought, but maybe the situation would have been worse if not for this guy. You never know. Sounds like he had an impossible job. Not sure you could really judge anyone based on the Cuban economy's performance. No one man could improve that situation. 

I will say it's not encouraging that they would simply transfer a bureaucrat from an unrelated department to run it instead of promoting someone already within Tabacuba. 

[El Presidente]

37 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Sounds like he had an impossible job. Not sure you could really judge anyone based on the Cuban economy's performance. No one man could improve that situation. 

I will say it's not encouraging that they would simply transfer a bureaucrat from an unrelated department to run it instead of promoting someone already within Tabacuba. 

 

...you need to stop talking sense 

[mprach024]

Sounds a great time to roll out some Nudies

[MrBirdman]

Are positions like this ever given to insiders as a kind of sinecure, where the real management is left to underlings? 

If that's not the case here, given the opacity and inertia of the Cuban system, there's no way to accurately evaluate how he performed. 

What happened to the last head of Tabacuba? 

[El Presidente]

1 hour ago, MrBirdman said:

 

What happened to the last head of Tabacuba? 

Given he wasn't arrested, he was deemed a success. 

[Nino]

The fear is real ....

Tabacuba ruins dozens of Cuban vegueros and washes its hands
The government is on its way to achieving a historic "achievement": destroying tobacco production, the most exportable agro-industrial sector in Cuba, warn peasants.

https://diariodecuba.com/economia/1637938994_35770.html

The Cuban government is on the way to achieving a historic "achievement": destroying tobacco production, the most exportable agroindustrial line in Cuba. Such an achievement would only be surpassed by the destruction, at the beginning of the millennium, of 80% of the sugar industry, once the first exportable item in the country. The person responsible for such a feat would be the Grupo Empresarial de Tabaco de Cuba (Tabacuba), recently chaired by the former czar of the government's economic reforms, Marino Murillo Jorge.

Although this year Tabacuba has made three price increases, the dissatisfaction of the producers persists. But the export of tobacco is one of the prohibited activities for the private sector; Therefore, Cuban vegueros have only two options: continue to sell their crops to the state business group or abandon tobacco production. The latter is the path that some tobacco growers from Mayarí, in the province of Holguín, are choosing.

One of the tobacco growers who is giving up the cultivation of export tobacco is Janner Ramírez, a producer with 15 years of experience in this work.

"It is a great scam. This year I took the best tobacco compared to previous years and I ended up with losses. The worst thing is that we know where the problems are. We say it through the established channels and the company washes its hands," he says indignantly to CUBA JOURNAL.

"Starting because at home the tobacco weighed 15 quintals and in the company only 13. And the quality was not bad, because the sampling that they did themselves did not present the problems that they later say. And when they pay me it is rubbish, just 35,000 pesos. If the harvest cost me 40,000 pesos, when taxes are deducted, I have more than 6,000 pesos of losses. It cannot be done like that, it is a trap. This is wrong, "he says.

For his part, Alexander Ramírez affirms that he will reduce his planting to a third this year due to "unfair prices and the insecurity of tobacco in the company, where thefts occur," he says.

"Every year they increase the rigor of wrapper selection and it is almost a matter of luck to get good money", he says, and offers an example so that his affirmation is understood: "Two farmers have equal quality (in the wrapper leaves). One passes ( by the company) in the first weeks and he fills up with money. If the other gets in the queue after three or four months, he comes out with a loss or earns a pittance. It is the reality of what happens.

"The worst thing is that the company does not care, despite the fact that this is destroying their business and does not allow it to grow. It is always the fault of the producers, as if one were stupid or did not know about tobacco. Now they believe that the only ones who know about tobacco are them. It is absurd and audacious that, to stimulate the production of thin wrappers, the rest of the tobacco, even if a jewel, they pay you as if it were garbage, at less than half the cost production. And there they make us bankrupt. That is very bad, but the company does not want to solve it, "Gregorio complains.

"Nobody cares what we are going to live on if we have not gained anything with tobacco. It is a robbery, it has no other name. I feel as if I had gotten up in the morning and the thieves had emptied my house. I sit down stolen and scammed. This has no other name. If I give 12 quintals of export tobacco to the Government (to the state company), they make a million pesos from me and instead of paying me 200,000 pesos, as it should be, they give me only 40,000. Of course they are robbing me! ", he concludes, more than annoying.

 

[PigFish]

Let me guess. To the Cuban Communist Party, the tobacco grower is now the bourgeoisie. 

-the Pig 

[NSXCIGAR]

The farmers have the power to grow other crops. They need to stop complaining and do it. It's the only way to get their attention. Let Tabacuba explain to Gemstone why their supplies are down. They have boots on the ground. They're not stupid. You don't go 50% into a Cuban company not knowing the BS that they spew. I'm surprised Gemstone isn't already putting pressure on Tabacuba to solve this. 

HSA knows how much Tabacuba is charging them for the leaf. The farmers tell them how much they're selling it for. They know exactly how much everyone's being screwed by Tabacuba. 

The Chinese are about to find out they're dealing with people more corrupt and treacherous than they are which is really saying something.