• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 03 / 20 / 2011

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The economic “actualization” the country is undertaking will take at least five years, and it is too big a task to be pressed by time, President Raúl Castro said during a meeting of the expanded Council of Ministers in Havana today.

“The biggest threat to the Revolution are the errors we commit,” Castro told his cabinet ministers, Party Politburo and Central Committee members,and provincial Party chiefs, according to Granma. He added that the reform process must be advanced “without haste, but without pause.”

Talking about a major delay in the announced layoffs of 500,000 state workers, Castro said the layoffs are “not a goal in itself, but a measure to bring back efficiency and discipline.” The timeline of reforms must be adjusted, he said.

“A task of this magnitude that affects, one way or another, many citizens, cannot be framed in inflexible terms.”

Economy Minister Marino Murillo presented a “preliminary report” about the recently concluded economic reform discussions in the run-up to a rank-and-file Communist Party Congress in April. More than 7 million Cubans participated in 127,113 meetings, generating 2,346 million contributions to the discussion, according to Granma.

“All opinions” gathered during the debate “will be analyzed,” Castro said, regardless the quantity, according to Granma. “Detailed information” of the results, according to the article, will be presented to the public when the “process is complete”.

Also during the meeting, General Comptroller Gladys Bejerano Portela presented the “Internal Control Norms,” a set of regulations published this week in the Gaceta Oficial that function as a road map of the economic reform process. The regulations are not only designed to battle irregularities, but also to make management more efficient.

Castro said that Bejerano’s office will take on an increasingly “more important and decisive role.”

Meanwhile, Leonardo Andollo Valdés, who was put in charge of a crucial reform commission, reported about changes in the central government. Andollo said that the reforms undertaken in Mayabeque and Artemisa, two new provinces created after the split-up of Havana province, emphasized the importance ” of continuing reforms in these provinces.

Source: www.cubastandard.com/2011/03/18/castro-takes-pressure-off-reform-process/