Cuba to close state-run lunchrooms
HAVANA - Cuba plans to close state-run office lunchrooms, put more money in employees’ pockets, and let them fend for themselves as it cuts budgets and food imports and works to wean people off the dole, government sources said.
“The order is already out to close the lunchrooms of the ministries in Havana and pay the employees 15 pesos more per day,’’ a midlevel government administrator said this week, asking that his name not be used. “If all goes well, many more will close in the city and around the country.’’
The plan, in its pilot phase, could involve hundreds of workplace cafeterias by next year, and will fuel demand for food services provided by private vendors and other state-run food services.
On the market-lined Tulipan Street in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood, state and private vendors said they had heard of the measure and some were preparing for the increased demand from employees of the nearby agriculture and transport ministries.
“I’m training two people to help me, as I can’t meet the demand that’s coming. I have to think big,’’ pizza maker Jorge Perez Diaz said.
Meanwhile, the United States and Cuba will start talks this month on resuming direct mail service for the first time in nearly half a century as the Obama administration continues to try to engage the communist-led island, US officials said yesterday.
The negotiations, set for Sept. 17, are a follow-up to a resumption in July of talks on the legal immigration of Cubans to the United States, according to the officials. The two sides agreed on the two sets of discussions in late May, a month after President Obama eased travel and financial restrictions on Americans with family members in Cuba.
