Tuesday, 28 March, 2023
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Cuba puts state-owned car owners on commuter aid duty

Cuba puts state-owned car owners on commuter aid duty

Cuba has warned drivers of state-owned cars to pick up people at bus stops or face prosecution, as Havana faces painful shortages of diesel fuel, authorities said this week.

Diesel has been in very short supply since being diverted in March to run oil-fueled power plants.

As Cubans sweat out the island's worst economic crisis in three decades, public transport has become an ordeal; nearly 50 percent of buses are out of operation "for lack of tires and batteries," a ministry official told AFP last year.

So the Americas' only one-party Communist government announced it has begun implementing the old but previously unenforced rule on picking up riders.

People in Havana routinely wait hours for a bus to get to their schools or jobs.

Betty Pairol, a Cuban military officer, recently got a big surprise while trying to get to work.