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.
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.
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'”.
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 disconnected from the dire economic struggles of ordinary Cubans.
A number of Cuban activists and intellectuals published a letter calling for her removal, saying the comments were “an insult to the Cuban people”.
The Cuban president then 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.
Feitó Cabrera’s resignation was accepted by the Cuban Communist Party and the government.
While the Cuban government does not publish official figures on the number of people begging, the rise in their number has been self-evident to most Cubans amid the island’s deep economic crisis.
