Cuban government offices in the city of Caibarién are only receiving individuals who “bring their own electricity” in the form of power generators amid Cuba’s near-endless blackouts, the Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba reported on Tuesday.
More than six decades’ worth of disastrous communist policies enacted by the Castro regime have plunged Cuba into a severe humanitarian crisis and the ongoing almost complete collapse of the nation’s barely functional infrastructure. The dramatic situation has systematically worsened in recent years, leading to the worst migrant crisis in Cuban history and the ongoing collapse of its population.
Cuba’s derelict power grid, which had already forced Cubans to live through daily, near-endless blackouts in recent years, completely collapsed several times towards the end of 2024. Although the Castro regime managed to bring it back online, the barely-functional power plants, many of which remain offline and unrepaired, are no longer capable of powering Cuba all at once, further worsening the blackouts, which can now last several days at a time.
In February, the Castro regime temporarily suspended all education and work activities for two days in a desperate effort to reduce power consumption in the country — while at the same time hosting a leftist book fair that appeared to be unaffected by the blackouts, unlike the rest of the country.
Diario de Cuba stated that while there has been no official announcement, employees of several government agencies confirmed to the outlet that the measure of requiring individuals to bring their own power source to be waited on has been “authorized by higher authorities.”
“’We will attend to you if you bring your own electricity,’ that is the answer found by those who try to access some services of state institutions in Caibarién, Villa Clara, affected by long blackouts during working hours, like most of Cuba,” the report read.
Some of the offices listed by the outlet that have enacted the new policy in Caibarién include the local branches of the state-owned Popular Savings Bank (BPA), the notary public’s office, the Housing and Land Registry, the Office of the Registrar and the Land Registry. Individuals who require services from the listed offices must bring their own power generators to provide electricity, as the blackouts often occur during office hours.
An unidentified BPA employee explained to Diario de Cuba that the measure “was duly consulted and authorized by the higher authorities” of each ministry. The employee said that she conveyed the information to a queue of individuals tired of waiting for days for power to come back that rapidly formed after they saw the bank open.
“The solution arose as an alternative to the permanent absence of electricity in this territory, which receives power mainly at dawn, and only two or three continuous hours when it comes to daylight hours,” the employee explained to Diario de Cuba.
An employee of the Caibarién’s Notary’s office who spoke with Diario de Cuba under condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal said that brides and grooms who go to the office to get married “on the run” are doing so not because “they are too in love, but because they are planning to emigrate together.” The worker pointed out that the couples wishing to get married get frustrated if they do not have a power generator to bring to the office to receive the services.
Asked if the couples could instead get married at an adjoining Civil Registry, the worker explained that “the act of registration cannot be processed there because, even if they bring the power generator, there must be electricity in the municipalities of Remedios and Camajuaní at the same time, because the data transmission does not flow if we do not have a joint Internet connection.”
Diario de Cuba explained that the Castro regime’s Single Citizen Information System (SUIC) platform requires that its central office in Havana and any given regional office have power and internet connectivity for someone to receive a passport or other civil registry-related services.
Diario de Cuba reported that a local official of the Cuban Interior Ministry gave a similar explanation to a group of individuals desperately seeking to obtain their passports. While the official was able to hand out new identity cards without the need for electricity, she reportedly explained that passports, “even if they are made, cannot be given for reasons of registration,” and hinted that even if a person pays the 2,500 Cuban pesos (roughly $104) passport fees, the applicant may appear as “regulated” in the system, which effectively bans a Cuban from using their passports to travel out of the country.
“I’m sorry, but passports are made in Havana, not in Villa Clara, and you know well the difficulties the country is facing to solve transportation problems. We must be patient,” the Interior Ministry official reportedly told a group of individuals waiting for their passports since December, some of which have already lost their flight tickets.
Helen Sanchez, a Spanish national, told Diario de Cuba that she recently married a local from Caibarién, and explained that she had to buy gasoline for a generator “with euros” so that her mother-in-law could process the sale of her house using a power generator borrowed from a neighbor.
“The bank administrator gives us preference because, until they fix their generator, which has been broken for years, or bring in a new one and give it enough fuel to start it up, then the service will depend on people like us,” Sanchez said.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
