Cuban minister resigns after saying beggars in the country were all fakes
Cuba's Presidency said in a post on X that Minister of Labor and Social Security Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera 'acknowledged her errors and submitted her resignation.'
Feitó made the comments Monday before deputies in a National Assembly committee. The comments went viral, prompting calls for Feitó's impeachment and a wave of criticism in a country experiencing a tough economic situation in recent years.
'We have seen people, apparently beggars, (but) when you look at their hands, look at the clothes these people are wearing, they are disguised as beggars, they are not beggars,' Feitó said before the National Assembly committee. 'In Cuba there are no beggars.'
She added that people cleaning windshields use the money to 'drink alcohol.'
Feitó also lashed out against those who search through the garbage dumps, saying they are recovering materials 'to resell and not pay tax.'
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel was critical of the comments. Without mentioning her by name, but referring to the meeting at the National Assembly committee where Feitó participated, Díaz-Canel said on his X account: 'The lack of sensitivity in addressing vulnerability is highly questionable. The revolution cannot leave anyone behind; that is our motto, our militant responsibility.'
The economic crisis in Cuba has increased social vulnerability and led to unusual scenes for the island, such as people — especially the elderly — begging or scavenging through garbage, or some cleaning windshields at corners.
Until a few years ago, despite the poverty, there were no signs of begging or homelessness on the island thanks to benefits that have now been greatly reduced.
The pension of a retiree is about 2,000 Cuban pesos per month, roughly $5 on the informal market, and just under the cost of a carton of eggs. For those who don't receive remittances from family abroad, it means going hungry.
Self-employed Enrique Guillén believes the minister is wrong and that some people do not see the situation clearly, and hopes the government will take action.
'They are elderly people who count on a pension that does not exist. They cannot even buy a carton of eggs. It is the reality we are living in Cuba,' Guillén said.
On Monday, island authorities reported that Cuba's gross domestic product fell by 1.1% in 2024, accumulating a decline of 11% over the past five years.
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Margaret was also something of an Anglophile, and as she put it once, 'ran off' with the Rolling Stones. She enjoyed a fling with Ronnie Wood in the late Seventies, and was the subject of rumours involving Mick Jagger. 'We played dice until about five in the morning, in my hotel suite. Smoked some dope, talked,' she said in 2016. 'It was a good night, and it was my new world. But no one knew I was separated from my husband yet, and it brought a huge scandal.' Jagger himself mockingly alluded to the stories in 2024 when he quipped on stage in Canada: 'We love your Mr Trudeau. I mean, his family has always been such big fans of our band.' Despite Pierre's appalling treatment of his wife and cavalier attitude towards fidelity, he was (and is) perceived in Canada as a great charmer and Romeo, the kind of man who, even in his late 70s, was still able to twinkle away at otherwise hard-bitten journalists and turn them into putty. The writer Margaret Wente observed, after he kissed her hand and said her name 'with exaggerated appreciation', that 'it was all I could do to keep from asking for his room number'. He may not have charmed every single woman in his orbit; Margaret Thatcher, who had been warned about Pierre's 'complex personality' and 'unsound personal views' before meeting him in 1983, was entirely resistant to his charms. But the decidedly cordiale entente that he formed with many public figures – several of whom, such as Streisand, continued to extol his virtues long after his death – cannot simply be dismissed as political chicanery. So it may yet prove with his son. Whether or not he is embroiled with the Firework songstress, Monsieur Trudeau can be sure of one thing. As Streisand wrote of Justin in her memoir: 'Pierre would have been so proud of him.'
