[NYTr] Cuban VP Lage Tours Havana Work Centers

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


Cuban VP  Lage Tours Havana Work Centers

Havana, Jan 3 (acn) Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage Davila started 
2008 with a tour of several workplaces in the capital on January 2.

Lage Davila visited the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, which even during 
a major renovation project has continued to provide medical attention.

He was accompanied by Pedro Saez Montejo, first secretary of the 
Communist Party in the capital, and Juan Contino Aslan, president of 
the Havana Province Parliament.

Lage also spoke with workers at the Abdala Daycare Center, which just 
reopened. Juan Contino highlighted the progress made in daycare 
facilities with respect to the year 2003, when some 100 centers had to 
be closed for repairs in the capital alone.

Contino noted that currently only nine daycare centers remain closed, 
four of which should reopen this month.

During a visit to an apartment building, Manuel Buron, manager of the 
"micro-brigades" or special construction crews in the city of Havana, 
explained that in the last 6 years some 3,000 volunteers on the 
brigades received homes and spoke of the need to prioritize another 
2,500 who have waited more than 10 years for theirs.

Lage insisted that the quality of the construction work should always 
be a priority, a problem he said lies in the training of the workforce 
and control mechanisms.

During a visit to the Ministry of Sugar's vegetable farms, Lage was 
told that the amount of acreage planted would increase in 2008.

Minister Ulises Rosales del Toro informed that to do so there is an 
experienced workforce, previously dedicated to sugarcane harvesting, 
and that the farms have received irrigation equipment.

In a visit to the La Victora Cooperative dedicated to goat milk 
production, Pedro Saez praised the efforts of workers who, along with 
those on 25 other farms in the area, produce milk for children who 
cannot drink other types of milk.

The Cuban Vice President also visited the Toledo 2 work and study 
center where some 300 inmates receive training. Lage praised the effort 
and stressed the importance given by the penitentiary system to the 
reinsertion of the individual into society.