Für camajanes, jamoneros, aplatanados und bichos.

Survival Strategies and Economic Illegalities in Cuba: Die Tricks der Jineteros

http://www.carleton.ca/economics/seminar...ovember2005.pdf

In Antwort auf:

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CHARACTER AND DIMENSION

Many types of economic illegalities occur in Cuba. Below is list of some of these that are known
to the author. This list could be extended indefinitely.

• A bread-maker in a local bakery saves inputs for the production of buns to be sold at a marketdetermined price – one Cuban peso per bun – rather than at the rationed market price of five centavos per bun. The buns then can be sold for a profit. (D1 and C2)

• The employees at a pizzeria reduce the size and ingredients of the pizza, saving the remaining
ingredients for their own use. (D1 and C2)

• A butcher reserves some choice cuts of meat for "under the counter" sale to clients who are
willing to pay more than the official rationed price. (C3)

• Cigar makers remove cigars from the cigar factory for resale. (D1 and C6)

• After-hours security guards at a cigar factory sell cigars to passersby for convertible pesos.
(D1 and C6)

• An official at a state institution with access to a vehicle for official purposes uses it more or
less as a private vehicle, and the chauffeur as a personal employee. (D1)

• A waiter or barman provides low-cost home made peso-economy rum instead of official
dollar-economy rum to clients. The dollar economy rum is then sold for a dollar price. (D1 and
C6)

• A doorman at a cinema permits entrance without the purchase of a ticket but instead with a
small payment on the side. (D1)

• An inspector of cuenta propista paladares disregards discrepancies in restaurant owners' input
purchase and receipt records in exchange for a payment. (D1)

• An inspector for bed and breakfast operations overlooks an infraction regarding occasional
renting of a second unlicensed room for a payment. (D1)

• A mechanic for a state sector enterprise tells a client that a replacement part is not available
from official sources, but that he is able to locate and provide the part from outside the shop at
a higher price. While this may often be legitimate, it may also involve theft and resale of the
part from the enterprise. (D1 and C3)

• A gasoline tank truck provides a larger amount of gasoline at a gas station than officially
recorded. The gasolinera can provide the driver of the tank truck with a payment then can
resell the gas unofficially at a higher price. (D1 and C6)

• A state sector truck driver siphons gasoline out of the truck for resale at a black market price.
(D1 and C6)

• An elevator repairman requires an additional fee for repairing the elevator of a small apartment
building in order to get him to come and provide the service. (C3)

• Some state sector house and building painters dilute the paint they use on their official jobs in
order to use the leftover paint on private jobs after hours or to resell on the black market. (D1
and C6)

• An esthetician requires an additional payment from the client above the state fee for services
provided in the state beauty shop. (C3)

• A guard in a dollar store that sells clothing takes an item from the store and sells it privately to
a client for a discount. (D1 and C6)

• A taxi driver provides a ride with the meter off and for a fixed fee, explaining that the meter is
not working - or that he needs the money. Alternately, a taxi driver returning from a
destination to home base picks up a client and requests payment without use of the meter. (C3)

• A citizen provides full-time taxi service for foreigners or those paying in dollars. Or citizens
provide part time taxi service to supplement their incomes as doctors, civil servants,
pensioners etc. (C1)

• Some drivers of state vehicles provide lifts for tourists for a dollar fee as they make their
rounds. (C1)

• A foreign enterprise provides salary supplements in food and home-making supplies to its
employees. (C4)

• A doctor accepts the provision of a gift from a patient, following a successful treatment. A
case in which a doctor was offered a colored television by a grateful patient was reported in
Bohemia (October, 2004) (C5)

• Some workers in a food factory or rationed sector food outlet divert foodstuffs for resale on the
black market or for personal use. (D1 and C6)

• The owner of a house not licensed as a room rental facility rents a room illegally. (C2)

• The local Comite por la Defensa de la Revolucion president accepts a $10.00 bribe in
exchange for overlooking an illegal room rental. (D4)

• Citizens buy birthday cakes from a well-known but unlicensed and therefore illegal
neighborhood baker and vender. (C1)

• A mother buys powdered milk in the black market for her children. (C6)

• Toothpaste tubes in a store are missing about 25% of the paste and are filled with air instead,
presumably a form to pilferage. (D1 and C6)

• Some employees of a state store partly remove perfume from some bottles that are then filled
with water and sold, while the pilfered perfume is then sold illegally. (D1 and C6)

• A citizen pays a 5.00 Convertible peso bribe to an agent in order to secure a scarce 85 Peso
(Moneda Nacional or 3.15 Convertible Peso) one-way airline ticket from Havana to Holguín.
(D4)

• Jobs that permit the acquisition of significant foreign exchange through tips, notably in
tourism, are sold to applicants by the hiring decision-maker. (D4)

• A woman pays an income bonus to her hairdresser in a state shop in order to obtain a high
quality and timely service and recognizing that the hairdresser also has to live. (C5)

• A citizen sets up a satellite dish, receives foreign broadcasting, hooks up his neighbors for a
10.00 CUC monthly fee, and provides 24 hour cable service. (This was a common practice in
early 2005.) (C1)

• A woman sells spaghetti, stolen from somewhere in the distribution system, door-to-door in a
middle class. (D1 and C6)

• Some tourists are overcharged ostensibly by mistake, for their meals in a restaurant, with an
additional beer billed in some cases, with a "tip" included in the bill (though this is not in the
menu or in the policy of the restaurant) or with the prices for some items overstated. (D1)

• An authorized bicycle repair shop illegally sells spare bicycle parts. (C2)

It is difficult to know how significant these types of illegalities may be. Cuban citizens, as noted,
often assert that everyone is involved. However, the scale of the illegalities appears to be
enormous. Many types of goods are sold "door to door" by vendors in middle class areas. It is
often stated that everything imaginable is available on the black market, ostensibly from pilferage
from the state sector.

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