Cuba Issues Summons in “Juice” Scandal
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES, July 20 — The Ministry of Interior has issued a summons for Chilean businessman Joel Max Marambio in connection with serious irregularities including bribery, embezzlement and fraud at the Cuban-Chilean joint venture Alimentos Rio Zaza.
The Chilean general manager of the firm, Roberto Baudrand, who worked for Marambio, was found dead in his apartment on April 13 in Havana, reported IPS on Tuesday.
Marambio, a businessman with long-time connections with Cuba’s top leadership, reportedly has numerous holdings in Cuba that could be in jeopardy if he fails to show up by July 29.
For nearly two decades Rio Zaza had a virtual monopoly on selling packaged fruit juices within Cuba. After the death of Baudrand, the product disappeared from Cuban supermarkets, bars and restaurants. No explanation was forthcoming.
Why would a tropical island need outside investment in fruit juice production? Production line technology? Refrigeration? Distribution? Simply the financing? Whatever the reason to involve capitalist-minded foreigners in “joint ventures”, the sooner cubans can themselves package — and export (only the *surplus*) — their locally-produced fruit juices all on their socialist own, the better.
That is real socialist production, after all — not this squalid “mixed economy” fraud stuff. Of which we can be certain there is too much more in process on the island.