AKEL forges cooperation for joint proposed Bill to suspend Privatisation Bill

 

Statement of Georgos Loucaides, AKEL Press Spokesperson

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 16th October 2015, Nicosia

As AKEL, as it has already publically been announced, in cooperation with the Movement of Social Democrats EDEK, the Ecologists- Environmentalists and the Citizens’ Alliance party, we have tabled a joint proposed Bill which provides for the suspension of the enforcement of the Law on privatizations in relation to the Semi-governmental organizations of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority “Cyta” and Cyprus Electricity Authority “EAC”.

The joint effort and concern of the parties which are signatory to the draft Bill is to stop the scheming of the leadership and Government of DISY Rally party to dismantle and swiftly sell-off the profitable Semi-governmental organizations and replace them with private oligopolies and monopolies.

 Given that the DISY leadership and government have deliberately broken their pledges they made to the Cypriot people on the issue of privatizations, given also that they publically declare that the issue is not one of raising revenues, it becomes evident that their stand is guided by their well-known ideological obsessions and their efforts to be pleasing to their Troika partners and mainly to be favourable towards the big private interests and not beneficial for the people.

 It would be beneficial for our people, consumers, taxpayers, workers, the economy and our semi-occupied country to preserve the public character of these organizations.

We call on the Government to end the process of the privatization of these organizations and to do what it didn’t do for 2.5 years, that is to say to engage in a dialogue with the political parties and involved agencies in order to promote the further modernization of the Semi-government organizations. We as AKEL have already elaborated a framework of positions for the modernization of Semi-governmental organizations, which we are ready to discuss with all interested agencies.

In conclusion, we want to express our gratitude for the cooperation we have had with the other parties who have jointly signed the proposed Bill, given that despite our secondary differences on the issue, we managed to build on our common concerns and worries, especially in our joint effort to protect our national wealth from the machinations of the government and ruling forces in favour of the large private interests.