The Report reflects the government’s failure, incompetence and lack of political will

The General Secretary of AKEL S.Stefanou on the Report submitted by the UN Secretary General

4 January 2022, ‘Astra’ radio

The Reports submitted by the Secretary General of the UN are an expression of the government’s failure, incompetence and lack of political will to handle the Cyprus problem, the General Secretary of AKEL S.Stefanou told ‘Astra’ radio station.

Speaking to ‘Astra’ radio, S.Stefanou pointed out that for the second time, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres does not refer to the need for a resumption of the talks from the point where they had remained at Crans Montana and this time he does not mention Bi-zonal Bicommunal Federation as the form of the solution.

The government of DISY ‘Democratic Rally’ party and Nicos Anastasiades with its backtrackings, regressions and erroneous decisions on the Cyprus problem have made the Greek Cypriot side unreliable/untrustworthy and simply not able to convince, the General Secretary of AKEL told ‘Astra’ radio station.

As for the presidential elections, Stefanos Stefanou indicated that AKEL will exhaust every possibility to create the preconditions for change in 2023. He pointed out that his Party has not delayed in taking decisions, but is proceeding according to a schedule and decisions will be taken this spring.

The vote on the government’s veto wasn’t a surprise

The ruling DISY party’s decision to vote against the presidential veto of a bill passed by opposition parties on AKEL’s initiative to cut VAT on electricity bills from 19 per cent to 9 per cent across the board was not a surprise, The General Secretary of AKEL told ‘Astra’ that whenever there are elections, DISY mutates and disguises its true self.

The essence, S.Stefanou stressed, is whether the DISY government will implement what the overwhelming majority of political forces have voted for a reduction in VAT and what is also recommended by the European Commission as an indispensable instrument for addressing price hikes concerning electricity prices.

S.Stefanou pointed out that the Anastasiades government had nine whole years to bring Natural Gas for power generation purposes and to push forward the development of renewable energy sources in the energy mix which it did not do and as a result, he said, ordinary citizens are paying the cost of pollutant fees.