“Or special projects, such as the nuclear power plant?”
“I realized that that project was lagging behind. It was a matter of supervision methods. The team responsible for the project held quarterly assessment meetings. I found out, for example, that the workers’ food, transportation, and other living conditions weren’t getting all the attention they required. Together with some of my staff I went to the site and asked about the living conditions, the quality of the shoes and other work clothes, the transportation that took the workers to visit their families, the material supplies for the project, the lack of construction equipment, and other aspects. What interests me is taking care of the workers. A worker will feel more interested in the project if they have decent conditions and see that their work is appreciated and that there is constant concern about their human and material problems. I saw that they were taken to their home provinces in trucks. I asked, ‘How many buses are needed — 30? We’re going to try to get them. We’ll use the ones we have in reserve.’ I made some suggestions. I even gave them the idea of building a campsite near the project so their families could visit them and rest with them near the job site. Of course, the agencies responsible for the project needed resources and more direct support; they got it.”
Fidel lit his small cigar with a chrome-plated cigarette lighter. He ran his slender fingers over his beard and continued: “I work directly with a team of 20 compañeros, 10 of whom are women. They form a coordination and support group. Each one tries to find out what’s going on in the country’s main production and service centers by maintaining contact with them. Without clashing with the ministries, this team makes decision-making more dynamic. It is composed of people, not departments. When I visited the nuclear power plant and found out about the quarterly meetings, I pointed out that the development of the project couldn’t wait even one month, much less three. The meetings were an inventory of difficulties that had to be solved quickly. Now, representatives of the job site must report to the team office every day on how the work’s progressing, what difficulties they have, etc. One of the team members who specializes in this task visits the site systematically. The problems can’t wait; they must be solved immediately. We do the same thing with other important, decisive projects.”
“In Cienfuegos,” Joelmir Beting interrupted, “I realized that knowing that the comandante is keeping an eye on the work is a great incentive.”
“No office in the world has fewer people than mine. How many people do you work with?” Fidel asked Chomi, secretary of the Council of State and former president of the University of Havana, who works closely with him.
“Six,” he replied.
The Brazilian journalist asked, “Which agency assigns priorities for resources?”
“It used to be the Central Planning Board. Now it’s more decentralized. People’s Power, for instance, administers the schools, hospitals, transportation, trade, and practically all local services. For example, in a province such as Santiago de Cuba, People’s Power selects the hospital director. Logically, this is done in consultation with the Ministry of Public Health, which provides the professional cadres and is in charge of the work methodology in the hospital.”
“Is this decentralization something new?”
“No. We’ve always shared functions and responsibilities here.”
“Is that the Cuban model?”
“There is a lot that is Cuban in the model. The electoral system, for example, is completely Cuban. Each election district — consisting of around 1,500 people — elects a delegate to People’s Power. The voters nominate and elect the candidates without any intervention by the party. They are the ones who nominate the candidates — from two to eight of them in each district. The party isn’t involved; it simply guarantees that the established standards and procedures are observed. On election day — they’re held every two and a half years — whoever gets more than 50 percent of the vote is elected; if no one does, then there’s a runoff election. Those elected are delegates to the Municipal Assembly and elect the members of the Municipal Executive Committee. Immediately after this, these delegates, together with the party and the mass organizations, draw up a slate of delegates to the Provincial Assembly and the 500-member National Assembly. More than half of the members of the National Assembly are elected at the grass-roots level of People’s Power. Meetings are held periodically in each election district. In them, in the presence of the delegates who were elected, the voters discuss the delegates’ work and if they decide to, can revoke their mandate.”
“When I visited a hospital, I noticed that the mothers had the right to accompany their sick children,” Joelmir Beting observed.
“For a sick child,” Fidel Castro explained, “the best nurse in the world is its mother. Before, they weren’t allowed in, and they stayed at the hospital door anxiously awaiting news about their children. The concept was that since the mothers hadn’t had medical training, they might interfere with the medical treatment. Many years ago, we adopted another system that has had excellent results. In any pediatric hospital, the mother has the right to accompany her child; she’s provided with the appropriate clothes to wear while in the hospital and is given meals free of charge. In the latest congress of the Federation of Cuban Women, which was held last March, the mothers asked for fathers to be given the same right. Frequently a mother is busy with her other children and can’t be at the hospital with the one who’s sick. That petition is already being studied. We’re even studying the possibility — also because the women have requested this — of having a son, a brother, or the father of any other hospitalized patient accompany them. So far, only women have been allowed to do this, but they feel that this puts all the family burden on them, thereby limiting their possibilities for fulfilling their duties at work and obstructing their social advancement. Nowadays, women constitute 53 percent of the technical work force.”
“Does the new five-year plan for 1986–90 contain innovations in its methodology?”
“Yes. It’s more rational. The emphasis is on the economic aspects — mainly on export products. For example, even though a certain province may want to build a new sports stadium or a theater, building a factory that will help to increase exports has priority. The stadium and the theater will be built when it’s possible but never at the expense of a priority economic objective. No aspect of the plan is a result of disputes among state agencies; rather, a global, rationalized policy is followed and accepted by all agencies. Thus, for example, we avoid struggles between the Ministry of Education and the Central Planning Board. The plan sets the standard for planning; it establishes priority sectors and organizes the distribution of resources. The fact that during the past 26 years we have built almost all the social projects we need in the fields of education, health, culture, and sports allows us to assign most of our investments to economic projects without sacrificing social development. Growth in social services will be mainly in terms of quality and not so much in new installations, although some new facilities will also be built.”
Calmly and clearly, Joelmir Beting asked, “Is what you’re projecting socially being achieved in Cuba?”
“Yes, in its essential aspects,” Fidel replied.
“Are there idle capacities in the health sector?”
“As I said, we’re investing to improve quality; this is the case, for example, with the building of pediatric hospitals. We have created family doctors, each of whom looks after a group of families directly in the neighborhood. They aren’t the doctors who cure diseases; rather, they protect health by giving the families orientations regarding preventive measures. On the Isle of Youth, which you visited, there are junior high schools with students of 22 different nationalities. In the beginning, we were afraid they would bring in diseases that had already been eradicated here or even ones that were unknown here. We’ve been completely successful in confronting this possibility and have proved that all of the diseases that are scourges in Africa or other continents can be controlled by medical science and modern medicines. All foreign students are given medical examinations