Cuban drivers face waits of several months to refuel their vehicles, as intensifying fuel shortages, exacerbated by a US oil embargo, grip the island.
To prevent chaos at petrol stations, Cuba’s government last week mandated an app, ‘Ticket’, for booking refuelling appointments.
However, drivers in Havana told The Associated Press on Monday that the app is only providing slots weeks or months from now.
“I have (appointment) number seven thousand and something,” said Jorge Reyes, a 65-year-old who downloaded the app on Monday.
Reyes signed up to refuel at a gas station in Havana that is only awarding 50 appointments per day. “When will I be able to buy gas again?” he said.
The app only allows drivers to sign up for appointments at one gas station at a time. So, on WhatsApp groups some drivers are sharing information on which places might be less crowded or which gas stations have a greater capacity to serve customers, noting that some locations are awarding up to 90 appointments per day.
But that is of little comfort to those who have downloaded the app, only to find out there are up to 10,000 appointments ahead of theirs.
The Cuban government has also stopped selling gasoline in local currency at subsidized rates of about 25 cents per liter, and is now only selling more expensive fuel, priced in U.S. dollars.
A liter of gasoline currently sells for $1.30 at gas stations and can cost up to six dollars in the growing black market for gasoline. Government workers in Cuba are earn less than $20 a month, when their earnings in Cuban pesos are converted to U.S. dollars using market rates.
When drivers can finally refuel at service stations, they are only allowed to buy 20 liters of gasoline, or about 5.2 gallons.
“This will not last me long,” said Ariel Alonso, a businessman who refueled Monday at the El Riviera gas station.
“I have to leave a reserve of five liters in case anyone gets sick at home,” and has to be taken to the hospital, he said.
The Ticket app is run by XETID, a state owned software firm. Last week, the company’s commercial director Saumel Tejada, told news site Cuba Debate that more than 90,000 drivers had sought refueling appointments using the app.
Ticket has been around for three years, and was previously used by Cubans to secure appointments at notaries and at gas stations where they could pay for fuel in local currency. But now it is almost the only way for drivers to get their cars refueled — without going to the black market.
Vehicles used for the island’s tourism industry are the exception. Those cars have special license plates and are allowed to refuel at 44 service stations around the island, where long lines have formed. As with regular vehicles, tourism cars can only purchase 20 liters of fuel.
Fuels shortages and blackouts have been intensifying in Cuba this month, as the nation struggles to import oil for its power plants and refineries.
In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened any nation that sold oil to Cuba with tariffs, as Washington steps up efforts to pressure the island’s communist government to make economic and political reforms.
Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel has said that he is willing to negotiate with the U.S. “as equals” and without relinquishing his nations sovereignty. Díaz-Canel has accused the U.S. of staging an “energy blockade.”
Venezuela, one of Cuba’s main oil suppliers, stopped selling crude to the island in January after the U.S. captured then president Nicolás Maduro in a pre-dawn raid and flew him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
Mexico also cut off oil shipments to Cuba in January, after Trump issued the tariff threat.
Banks on the island have reduced their working hours in a bid to save electricity and earlier this month the Cuban government said that it will not provide fuel to planes that land on the island, prompting three Canadian airlines to cancel flights to Cuba. Other airlines will continue to fly to the island but will make refueling stops in the Dominican Republic.
A book fair and an annual cigar trade fair have also been postponed as officials look for ways to reduce fuel and electricity consumption.
Last week a group of United Nations human rights experts condemned the U.S oil siege, saying that it has “no basis on collective security and constitutes a unilateral act that is incompatible with international law.”
