The biggest obstacle to his reforms is “the psychological barrier formed by inertia, the defense of the status quo, the simulation … the indifference or insensibility” of Cuba’s bureaucracy,....
“I warn that all bureaucratic resistance … will be useless,” he declared. “We will be patient and at the same time persevere in the face of the resistance to change, be they conscious or unconscious.”
Castro’s reform plans call for an increase in private enterprise and foreign investments, deep cuts in state subsidies, layoffs for more than 1 million public employees, fewer government controls on state enterprises and expansions in the legal sales of houses and vehicles.
But his words rang hollow to dissident economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who argued that Castro has not seriously tackled a bureaucracy that traditionally derives special benefits from its ability to game the system and the petty corruption prevalent in Cuba.
“He doesn’t want to realize that the bureaucracy has its own mentality, based on its own benefits,” Espinosa said by phone from Havana. “And those benefits have not been destroyed. They remain intact.”........
...During his speech, Castro also announced the government would take several steps to help Cuba’s fledgling micro-enterprises by cutting prices on raw materials and tools and allowing the businesses to obtain bank credits and hire up to five workers without paying extra taxes.
....Castro mentioned the “painful” case of an unidentified government official and Communist Party member who wrote to him to complain that she was almost fired from her job because she had not told her supervisors that she went to church on Sundays…..”
The decision would mean relaxing the 19-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which generally bars American commerce with the nation and caps the amount of American-made components in offshore drilling vessels and other equipment at 10 percent.
The federal government is “taking measures to ensure that the appropriate private industry parties are able to respond quickly in the event of an oil spill in Cuban waters,” said Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich. That includes issuing licenses that would allow U.S. companies to deploy “booms, skimmers, dispersants, pumps and other equipment and supplies necessary to minimize environmental damage in the event of a spill.”
Bromwich said the Treasury Department also is weighing whether to issue licenses to companies that own and operate containment equipment that is designed to capture crude from blown-out underwater wells. Two U.S. firms developed such subsea containment systems in response to last year’s Deepwater Horizon disasters, but there are no others that would be readily available in case of a well blowout near Cuba.
Under the embargo, individual companies can ask the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for licenses to travel to or do business with Cuba. At least two U.S. companies specializing in spill response already hold such permits."........