Manzanillo, Granma. – It is not the painful image of the tallest tower in the industry nor of the disused ships with their rusty iron skeletons visible from the road, which requires an urgent «electroshock» for resuscitation and takeoff for the only Cuban company that manufactures batteries for automotive equipment.
Nor does the effort to revitalize encourage that useless nostalgia for the good times in which each piece of accumulators was made there; much less the charitable motive of doing something for the eastern city that previously proudly sported its industrial dynamics.
There is a national economy that –in the daily pressure of managing the very narrow finances with which it survives the day to eat, light up, move or keep vital that basic social that is so expensive to the country and so free for those who learn and heal themselves– understands that if we tighten the belt it would be to bet on endogenous development and invest in all the potential that generates rapid liquidity.
The manufacturing possibilities of the Island count on this purpose, either to export or to save millions of imports from our own productions, a matter placed by President Miguel Díaz-Canel in places of first priority.
Of the provinces that started their very dynamic work system, in June 2018 Granma gave them a good basis to exemplify and decide on an urgent policy to revive the national industry.
The Company of Accumulators XX Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution was going through what was - despite the end-of-calendar attempts to reverse the fall - the worst of 40 years of production. Not even in the crudest of the so-called special period did it produce so few equivalent batteries (33,325, 28% of the plan) at the expense of not having enough raw materials.
The evident economic distortions that condemn the emergence of the Manzanillo factory did not escape the president's observation: the million-dollar import of accumulators, whose invoices would cover by a wide margin all the lead, boxes and caps required for a year of plant work , as well as fundamental investments; the false myth of the quality of the Cuban battery, confused with the deficiencies in its exploitation; arrears in debt payments to suppliers; the slow negotiation for the establishment of a mixed company; as well as the frank neglect to the logical dictation of a manufacturing cost that saves between eight and ten dollars in each equivalent battery made here.
From then until now, and in the interest of responding to the agreements generated after the government visit -which included implementing actions to modernize and expand the entity's capacity-, the springs were activated that should allow the production flow of the plant, bringing it closer to the country's demand and breaking the dependence on purchases in the foreign market, both of finished batteries and expensive raw materials, which in large part could be replaced with adequate recycling of used components.
THE FACTORY TODAY
In conversation with the engineer Leonardo Boza, director of the Manzanillo company attached to the Gesime group, of the Ministry of Industries, Granma learned that in April he announced that break in production levels that could not materialize in the first quarter, as a result of the well-known financial situation that has affected sensitive sectors of the national daily life, including food.
He explained that they circumvented the stage with resources pending to enter the previous year, however, they are already having supplies that would ensure they approach the 10,000 equivalent batteries per month, and even exceed them in the following months.
The decision of the national government to pay debts to suppliers and make money available to buy mainly lead, is blowing new airs that at times are rarefied by the efforts of the US administration to tighten the blockade against Cuba.
Precisely the constant announcements of threats and financial persecution have conditioned obstacles and uncertainties in management to create a joint venture that totally revolutionizes the factory; Despite the enthusiasm generated by investors, the prioritized interest of the Cuban executive in promoting the industry.
Even so, Boza stressed, the plant maximizes the use of the resources that are arriving, maintains the line installed in the year 2000 and introduces advantageous redesigns that multiply the performance of the batteries, such as new grid molds (skeletons of metallic lead that supports the active plates) designed for a better start, or a curing chamber that favors homogeneity in the technological process.
With the negotiation of advances in the shipments of raw materials, added Leonardo Boza, the plant could approach 50,000 batteries in the first half and consolidate an increasing rate that matches the end of the almanac with the plan accomplished.
A MARKET OF INVESTMENT
Notwithstanding the limitations that still slow down the concretion of results at the height of national demand - such as those that have slowed the participation of mixed capital - managers and workers of the xx Anniversary work with what they have, empowered by a high commitment; while they hope for that kind of plan b that proposes a state investment (the factory has almost all the documentation that would allow it to be financed) with which they would solve critical routes within the current process and finally take a productive leap.
The investment would include, Boza lists, a heavy wastewater treatment plant, laboratory equipment, both to analyze purchased raw materials and to perform rigorous blood lead tests on workers; test devices with technical specificities adjusted to international standards (which would enable them to regain certification), and two grid machines, essential in the effort to catapult the current production potential of 160,000 batteries to 280,000 annually.
The culminating point of such investment, said the manager, would be the provision of a cargo ship that would close the manufacturing cycle, since it would represent a decisive quality test applied to 100% of the finished accumulators.
Unlike maintenance-free batteries, the Cuban is delivered dry, with a charge formation of 80%, and accompanied by the electrolyte with which it will be serviced and subjected to precise ranges of slow charges before mounting it in the vehicle.
Frequent user violations of such requirements and oversights during operation have been the talk fueling the myth of low quality, despite the irrelevant percentages of claims made to the manufacturer.
In this situation, the ship would solve two things: offer the service and deliver the battery at 100% charge, ready for operation, and subject them all to a high-regime discharge test that would reveal and allow to rule out those with defects typical for short circuit or open circuit.
For the moment, Boza insisted, "working on what we have, we declare ourselves ready to assume the commitment that a deep revival of Cuban battery manufacturing would entail."
Beyond such a statement, the awakening of the Manzanilla entity could become an exemplary model of the sustainable economic response required by government policy (established in Guidelines 180 and 181) to revive the national industry.
In short, as long as the association with foreign capital that allows a total modernization - including the diversification that incorporates new lines such as the batteries of computer ups, or the cries for the so popular electric bicycles - is specified, the partial investment described , equivalent to about two million pesos in equipment, would be more than justified in the face of the annual expenditure of eight million that only on basic raw materials is required by the current line, still at low and insufficient production levels.
Other questions would remain, of course, at the mercy of the necessary increase: Why not redirect part of the millions with which expensive batteries are imported, to invest in less expensive Cuban production? Why delay an investment that makes batteries for electric motorcycles, if judging by the number on the streets, it was perhaps today the most attractive market of commerce for natural persons who order them today - with dollars that are running away - from those who can you bring them from abroad? When could the owners of private cars purchase the Cuban battery in retail offers, other than in the illegal and speculative black market?
If there is an industry in Cuba with potential and experience capable of advancing the answers with the help of an initial economic push, then let it begin to answer, since these same questions involve the latent reserves of national development.