Cuba woke up on Monday with the smallest government it has had in decades, at least on paper. Ley 186, de Organización de la Administración Central del Estado (Law on the Organisation of the Central State Administration) came into force, cutting the country's central bodies from 27 to 21: 20 ministries plus the Banco Central de Cuba (Central Bank of Cuba), which keeps its own rank and is still headed by a minister-president.
The law was passed by the Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular (National Assembly of People's Power) on 30 July and published on 2 November in the official gazette, Gaceta Oficial Ordinaria No. 90. The text itself set it to take effect seven days after publication — that is, on 9 November.
What disappears and what is merged
The most widely discussed change on the island is the disappearance of CITMA, the science, technology and environment ministry, whose powers are split among the new portfolios. Specialists and workers in the sector have voiced concern about where those functions will end up.
Domestic trade also ceases to be a stand-alone ministry: its remit moves to the Ministerio de Comercio e Inversión Extranjera (Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment).
The portfolios that absorb previously scattered functions are:
- Economy and Finance: economic planning, public finances, the budget, tax policy, prices and investment policy.
- Agriculture and Food: farming, the food industry, sugar, fisheries and related marketing.
- Environment, Habitat and Water Resources: the environment, housing, the land registry, territorial planning and water resources.
- Industries and Construction: the industrial sectors and construction.
- Higher Education, Science and Innovation: university teaching, scientific research and innovation.
- Information and Social Communication: state communication policy, advertising, sponsorship and aspects of how the media are organised.
Culture; Sport and Recreation; Education; Energy and Mines; Communications; Justice; Foreign Affairs; Public Health; Labour and Social Security; Tourism; the Revolutionary Armed Forces; the Interior; and Transport all remain.
Thirty days for a timetable, a year to move
The law does not shift resources overnight. The head of each body, and the central bank's president, have 30 calendar days from the law taking effect to give Prime Minister Manuel Marrero the timetable by which they will carry out the changes, and up to one year of transition to complete the transfer of staff, equipment and budgets.
That is also the most sensitive part for employees: the text does not spell out the individual situation of each worker in the bodies being merged or abolished.
The backdrop
The shake-up is part of a package of 176 measures approved in June to liberalise and decentralise the economy — the furthest-reaching process the Cuban government has opened in that direction since 1959. It arrives in the middle of a structural crisis, worsened this year by the United States oil blockade and the secondary sanctions tied to it, with long blackouts and shortages of basic goods.
In April, defending the cuts, Marrero called the process "complejo, pero necesario" — complex but necessary — and argued that a small country cannot sustain so large a bureaucracy.
Also scheduled for Monday, according to the EFE news agenda, was the presentation of a general law on science, technology and innovation — on the very day the ministry that carried science in its name ceased to exist.
With information from EFE and D-Cuba.
