Raúl Castro interrupts the National Assembly shouting

The former Cuban president and still dictator of Cuba, Raúl Castro, interrupted the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) with shouts to ask the deputies for “an applause” for the Minister of Industry Eloy Álvarez Martínez.

After Álvarez Martínez read before the deputies of the 10th Legislature the accountability report of the Ministry of Industries (MINDUS), the former ruler interrupted the president of the ANPP, Esteban Lazo.

“Lazo, Lazo,” he said. He then stood up and stated that MINDUS “has contributed a lot to the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), and that we also had to give it some bumps, even this minister deserves an applause from this Assembly,” said the 92-year-old man without justifying the reason for his enthusiasm.

“And stand up!” he ordered, after which the deputies rose from their seats and gave Álvarez Martínez a long round of applause.

In his report, the Minister of Industries spoke about the crisis on the island, and like any other attributed it to the “increase in the cost of imported inputs and limitations in international logistics” to justify the lack of foreign currency income in the economy, which “affects the industry and society,” he said.

When addressing the implementation of the economic and social strategy, he reported that the industrial framework of the activities governed by the organization is made up of 19,880 actors, among which there are 587 state enterprises, 727 mipymes (small and medium-sized enterprises) and non-agricultural cooperatives, 18,281 self-employed workers, and 285 creators of the Cuban Fund for Cultural Goods.

The total reported national commercial production is 23 million 956 thousand pesos, of which 82% correspond to the socialist state enterprise and 18% to non-state management forms.

The reported imports are 587 million dollars, among them a part of raw materials.

Its structure is being evaluated “to identify, with the installed technologies, those that we can assume and which ones require science, innovation, and development projects, as well as investments that allow increasing the industry’s participation in substituting imports,” he noted.

Álvarez Martínez reminded that in February 2020, the comprehensive policy for automation in Cuba was approved, and from 2021 to 2023, the legal norms for its implementation were issued.

Castro’s appearances are very sporadic at 92 years old, but in September he was seen appearing twice in the midst of the serious crisis the country is going through and recently did so in the Military Exercise Baraguá.

Now he reappears in the ANPP, where the regime announced strong measures such as the rise in the price of all basic services: electricity, water, gas, and transport; and the elimination of the Supply Booklet considered one of the “historical achievements” of the Revolution.