It has become common for many of the main economic entities of Las Tunas to have immense losses in their management. Until the end of August, 21 of the 41 of these organizations had lost more than 300 million pesos, which affects the development of society itself.

In the first months of 2023, the impact on the State budget amounted to 145 million pesos, because only 83.4 percent of net sales were fulfilled, which consists of gross sales less discounts, product returns, or damaged products; for this reason, the province stopped collecting more than 1,450 million pesos. Also, another 20 entities failed to meet profits.

The most affected activity in the province in the period under analysis is retail trade with more than 169 million pesos in losses, which are concentrated in seven companies: Las Tunas, Puerto Padre, Jesús Menéndez, Jobabo, and Colombia. Gastronomy and Accommodation have a similar situation with more than 29 million pesos of damage.

This, which is nothing more than the so-called retail trade circulation, reflects all the sales made by Commerce and Gastronomy companies and covers the services provided in restaurants, the sale of cleaning products, and agricultural supplies. Failure to comply has economic and social importance.

To make it better understood: retail circulation causes financial stability; it acquires a collecting power, since there is no circulating surplus in the population and it has to do with income to the State budget; while in the social sphere, compliance with sales plans represents a greater number of services to the inhabitants, who have access to a greater number of products.

Now, the matter is getting worse because from January to August, many of the main entities in the province paid more than 80 million pesos in salaries without productive support, which according to experts constitutes an injection of monetary mass that generates inflation and internal finances imbalances, a real problem.

But, in addition, paying wages without producing constitutes a serious indiscipline, and even a crime, because sums of money are disbursed improperly. When a payment is made without productive support, the indicator of salary expenditure per peso of gross value added deteriorates, because it is not being produced.

More clearly: when you pay for what was not done, you are stealing from the State. And all the management structures of each workplace are responsible for this lack of control.

Even more worrying, this scenario has already become repetitive. In January, for example, 29 million 924 thousand pesos were paid by 25 companies in the province without productive support in just one month, with similar antecedents in 2022. It seems that no one is responsible for state money.

Justifications arise on the subject based on the fact that it is paid to protect the qualified workforce in certain companies, which in some cases have also seen their main management and workforce limited for various reasons, which reduces production and sometimes becomes almost null. But we must find formulas to reorient work and have other options that allow salaries to be sustained.

The first eight months of the year were bad for Las Tunas' economy but not all is lost, because some entities that, on equal terms with the others, with the same lack of resources and deficiencies of all kinds, did not have losses, and even made profits.

As the vice governor of Las Tunas, Ernesto Luis Cruz Reyes, said in the last economic plenary session: “There is a lot of irrationality in the use of the workforce and resources, little analysis, and a lot of negligence.”

If these deficiencies are eliminated, and those responsible are held accountable, the indicators will be different. And that must be achieved.