The Cuban regime has poured tens of billions of dollars, estimates range from $13–24 billion in recent decades, with some plans alone costing $11–19 billion into building and expanding ~85,000 hotel rooms, mostly through military-controlled entities like GAESA and Gaviota. These luxury projects, often empty (occupancy hovering around 21–30%, with many hotels at half or less capacity), sit as symbols of misplaced priorities while the Cuban people endure daily suffering.
In stark contrast, stabilizing and modernizing the entire national electricity grid aging, oil-dependent, and collapsing repeatedly (like the full nationwide blackouts in 2024–2026) would cost roughly $8–10 billion, according to energy experts and analysts. That’s a fraction of what the regime has funneled into tourism infrastructure over the same period.
Yet year after year, the government allocates massive shares of state investment (often 32–37%, sometimes 11 times more than health and education combined) to hotels and related projects, while energy gets a tiny slice (around 12% or less in many recent years). The result? Chronic blackouts lasting 15–20+ hours a day, spoiled food, non-functional hospitals, no water pumping, halted industry, and a vicious cycle that even scares away the tourists the hotels were built for.
This isn’t about external pressures, it’s a clear, deliberate choice by the regime. The leadership prioritizes flashy, revenue-generating (but failing) projects that benefit insiders, military conglomerates, and foreign partners over the basic needs of ~10.9 million Cubans (living in the country): reliable electricity, food security, medicine, and dignity in daily life.
The disconnect is glaring and tragic: while the regime hoards cash (Gaviota alone reportedly sitting on billions in accounts) and builds empty towers, ordinary Cubans are left in literal darkness. Redirecting even a portion of those tourism billions to the grid could have prevented much of this preventable misery. Stable power isn’t a luxury, it’s the foundation for everything else. The regime’s bad decisions continue to widen the gap between its priorities and the real, urgent needs of the Cuban people.
#Cuba #Blackouts #RegimePriorities #CubaLibre #SOScuba