HAVANA – Cuba’s government will begin renting state-owned restaurants to workers who want to run them independently, the latest step of President Raul Castro’s economic overhaul.

Interior Commerce Vice Minister Ada Chavez Oviedo said a pilot program will begin Dec. 1 at restaurants with up to five employees, according to an article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

“A new system of economic management with the renting of state-run locales for independent work in food services will take place gradually,” Chavez was quoted as saying.

She said the program initially will be tried in three of Cuba’s 15 provinces – Artemisa, Villa Clara and Ciego de Avila.

The measure is similar to management models already under way at beauty salons and barber shops. The workers will assume responsibility for maintenance, repairs and utilities and must enroll in the country’s nascent tax system, Chavez said.

The independent restaurants will still have access to tobacco products at wholesale prices for resale to customers.

State-run restaurants are often bland affairs that suffer from poor quality, listless service and pilferage by employees for their own consumption or for sale to the black market.

The idea behind the new measure appears to be that turning workers into stakeholders can solve those problems.