Compulsory Purchase. What for?

Compulsory Purchase. What for? / Noel Rodriguez Avila
Posted on September 6, 2013
Lic. Noel Rodríguez Ávila

Our present work is concentrating on the processes of compulsory
purchase (forced expropriation) against the owners of motor vehicles
transporting freight from the provinces of Holguín and Las Tunas.

Before they started this, in the extinct transport sectors, they created
commissions for the buying and selling of trucks, which followed the
express instructions of the Ministry of Transport in regard to
inspecting the vehicles in question, to detect anything illegal done by
their owners in terms of parts, components, accessories or engine units.

Once they had finished the inspection, they wrote out a report on the
deficiencies they had detected; afterwards they gave the owner a
document directing him to sell his vehicle, for which they paid by
cheque in the payee's name in national money for the value of $1800 or
$2500, depending on the tonnage.

This transaction was covered by an ambiguous, corrupt and one-sided
contract of sale authorized by Resolution 118-88 of the Ministry of
Transport, the law 1090/63, complemented by the law 1148/64, and the law
1206/67, which entitled the Central Administration entities of the state
to acquire the assets required for the taking forward of their
activities; giving rise to a situation in which, on the presentation of
demands before the Civil and Administrative Chamber of the Provincial
Tribunals, the sale was Held to be Null and Void because of the
exclusion of the spouse's interest.

In those cases where the vehicle's owner refuses to effect the sale, the
process of compulsory purchase is commenced; a procedure which is
instituted in our legal and constitutional system, ensured both by the
Constitution of the Republic in Art. 25 and also in Arts. 425 et seq. of
the Law of Civil, Administrative, Employment and Economic Procedure;
being the prerequisite which mediates the declaration of public
necessity and social interest.

On that basis the Ministry of Transport issued Resolutions number 40 and
85, which declared the public necessity and social interest in acquiring
the said vehicles which were operating in the eastern area, in order
that the Holguín Truck Company could achieve its transport plans.
Looking back, it is clear that the objective of this process was to get
rid of the private sector.

This view is backed up by an legal Opinion issued by the legal
directorate of the Ministry of Transport, in relation to a complaint
presented by truckers from the province of Holguín addressed to Raúl
Castro Ruz, who was at that time Second Secretary of the PCC (Communist
Party of Cuba) and Minister of the FAR Revolutionary Armed Forces); in
which, among other things, there is the following reference: The
compulsory purchase of trucks, initiated against their owners, has its
antecedents in the year 1989, when, on the orders of the high command of
the country they made available what was termed "The policy of making
things harder for the private sector, with a view to its gradual
disappearance", reflected in agreement no. 1507 of the Secretariat of
the Central Committee of the PCC …

We can therefore conclude that:

Firstly: The private carriers were grouped in the defunct Fleet
Operator, from where they offered their transport services, both to
private individuals and companies, as well as the Central Administration
of the State.

Secondly: That the Ministry of Transport secured, employing anticipated
alleged technical violations and by way of a corrupt contract of sale,
the compulsory purchase, with no voluntary aspect at all, of private
sector trucks, resulting in the later nullification of these legal
transactions.

Thirdly: That the State disguised its true intentions, aided by a false
declaration of public necessity and social interest, when its real
interest was to get rid of the private sector.

Fourthly: Today it remains clear that this sector represents a great
public utility and is in the social interest, as the state has had to
turn to the private carriers in order to sort out the situation with the
transport of passengers and goods on a national level.

Therefore it would be good to get a reply to the question in the title:
Compulsory purchase: Why and what for?

Translated by GH

26 August 2013

Source: "Compulsory Purchase. What for? / Noel Rodriguez Avila |
Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/compulsory-purchase-what-for-noel-rodriguez-avila/