Cuban Minister for Labour Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera has been forced to resign after she made comments denying the existence of beggars on the Communist-run island.
The minister had said there was no such thing as “beggars” in Cuba and people going through rubbish were, in essence, doing so out of choice to make “easy money”, as she put it.
Her comments, made in a parliamentary session, were widely criticised by Cubans at home and abroad, and prompted a response from the island’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. She resigned soon after.
Poverty levels and food shortages have worsened in Cuba as it continues to grapple with a severe economic crisis.
Both the public criticism her comments triggered and the public rebuke the minister received are unusual in Cuba, a country where anti-government protests are banned by law and open dissent can land critics in jail.
Feitó Cabrera made the comments earlier this week at a session of the National Assembly.
“There are no beggars in Cuba. There are people pretending to be beggars to make easy money,” she said.
Furthermore, Feitó Cabrera accused people searching through the rubbish of being “illegal participants in the recycling service”.
The minister clearly misjudged the outrage and anger her comments would cause and the extent to which they portrayed the country’s leadership as unfeeling, authoritarian and deeply removed from the dire economic struggles of ordinary Cubans.
President Díaz-Canel criticised Feitó Cabrera at the parliamentary session – albeit without mentioning her by name – saying the leadership could not “act with condescension” or be “disconnected from the realities” of the people.
With food and housing shortages becoming more acute in Cuba’s current economic crisis, the sight of people rummaging through rubbish bins for food and sleeping in doorways has become more common.
Daily life is further disrupted by fuel shortages and frequent power cuts.
Many Cubans also have to hunt for basic medicines, going from pharmacy to pharmacy in the hope of tracking down the medication they need.
In response to her claim that there were no beggars in Cuba, but people disguised as beggars, Cuban economist Pedro Monreal wrote on X: “It must be that there are also people disguised as ‘ministers'”.
A number of Cuban activists and intellectuals also published a letter calling for her removal, saying the comments were “an insult to the Cuban people”.
Feitó Cabrera’s resignation was accepted by the Cuban Communist Party and the government.