By Sarah Marsh and Nelson Acosta
HAVANA, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Cuba is deploying oxen toreplace tractors, using wood instead of gas at many statebakeries and advising citizens to save electricity by making themost of daylight as it grapples with an acute fuel shortage amidU.S. sanctions.
The government says it is prioritizing what little fuel ithas this month to sustain critical services such as hospitalsand sectors such as tourism, which generate much-needed hardcurrency. In other areas, it is seeking alternatives or scalingdown.
Some cement factories have decreased production, theconstruction minister told a state broadcaster this week. Alarge steel factory in Havana has stopped operating altogether,a worker there told Reuters.
Supervisors at two large hotel construction sites in Havanasaid building brigades from outside the city had been ordered tostay home because of a lack of fuel for transport and forworking all the machines at full capacity. The sites wereoperating with one shift instead of two or three.Other branches of the dominant state sector are also tellingworkers to stay at home until further notice because of drasticcuts in public transport.
"If they don't need me right now, then I'd far rather nothave to fight to catch a ride from a bus top overflowing withpeople, especially given this heat," said Rosario, 32, who saidher state news outlet had sent her home with her full salary.
She declined to give her full name for fear of retribution.
Some state workplaces, universities and schools have simplycut hours to save electricity and provide some relief to publictransport at peak commute hours.
Cuba's Communist government last week announced that U.S.sanctions on oil shipments to the island meant it had notsecured enough for September.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel said this was not a return tothe depths of the crisis Cuba suffered in the 1990s after thecollapse of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union. Sufficientfuel shipments have been secured for next month.
Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist whoteaches at Colombia's Universidad Javeriana Cali, said a rareadvantage of a centrally planned economy like Cuba's was that isdid enable the government to "orientate what little resources ithas to the country's essential priorities" in a crisis.
EVER WORSENING AUSTERITY?
Many Cubans fear the government is bracing for the economicsituation to remain dire or worsen.
Diaz-Canel has repeatedly said Cuba could learn from theenergy efficiency measures and should seek to keep some in placeafter the crisis is over.
"It's just not clear how things will get better given theuncertain circumstances," said Pablo Ramirez, 57, as he waitedin line at a gas station in the hope of a fuel delivery.
Queues at gas stations in Havana snake for blocks, with someCubans even sleeping in their cars overnight to have a chance offilling up.
Ramirez said his family needed their car to buy produce fortheir restaurant.
"It's just very tiring and frustrating," he said.
The government has been implementing austerity measuressince 2016 because of a decline in cheap oil shipments from allyVenezuela and the Trump administration's tightening of U.S.sanctions on Cuba, although nothing as severe as these.
"We have adopted measures like including around 4,000 yokeof oxen in the sugar cane work and production of food," JulioGarcía Pérez, president of state-run sugar monopoly Azcuba, toldstate-run media.
Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero said onWednesday that irrigation machinery was being turned off attimes of peak electricity usage to reduce the burden on thepower grid.
Diaz-Canel has said that he hopes to avoid the long poweroutages that characterized the euphemistically named "specialperiod" of the 1990s by using such measures, but that if any arerequired they will be planned and announced ahead of time.
Ordinary Cubans, meanwhile, are handling the shortages asbest they can.
"I'm thinking of getting a bike," said schoolteacher YanetSanchez, 27, after queuing for three hours to get from centralHavana to her western neighborhood by bus, a trip that shouldtake just 20 minutes.(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Gerry Doyle)