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Cuban tourism officials held
BBC,
UK, December 4, 2003.
Several senior officials in the largest
state-run tourism organisation in Cuba Cubanacan
have been placed under house arrest on suspicion
of corruption.
Among those detained is the president of
Cubanacan, Juan Jose Vega.
Millions of dollars are said to be missing
from the hotel, restaurant and travel agency
business.
The irregularities came to light when the
company complied with a government order
to all firms holding US dollars to convert
them into Cuban pesos.
Serious charges
For weeks Havana has been awash with rumours
of a major corruption scandal unfolding,
the BBC's correspondent in Havana, Stephen
Gibbs, says.
He says that government sources have now
confirmed to the BBC that the investigations
centre on Cubanacan.
With its president under house arrest,
the group is now being directly managed
by Cuba's minister of tourism.
Cuban Minister of Defence Raul Castro is
reportedly taking an active involvement
in this inquiry - this points to the seriousness
of the allegations, our correspondent says.
Temptation of corruption
The scandal apparently came to light after
a recent change in the rules in Cuba, whereby
local firms had been told that they could
not hold US dollars.
In the process of exchanging their holdings
into Cuban pesos, shortfalls were apparently
uncovered.
Since the demise of its Soviet backer in
the early 1990s, Cuba has legalised the
dollar and turned to tourism to save its
economy.
In the process, the flow of hard currency
into this communist-led island has increased
- and so has the temptation of corruption,
our correspondent says.
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