“Flagship of entrepreneurship” company leaves its workers unpaid

Statement by Andros Kafkalias, AKEL MP and President of the Committee of Labour, Welfare and Social Insurance after the Committee’s meeting

9 November 2021

On AKEL’s initiative, the problem faced by Cypriot workers abroad in companies of Cypriot interests was discussed for the second time in the Parliamentary Labour Committee. More specifically, for three years now, J&P Overseas (Ioannou and Paraskevaides) has continued to mock the company’s workers.

The company in question, in violation of every principle of labour law and exploiting loopholes in the legislation, has not paid 150 employees their wages, social insurance and providence fund, totaling €13 million, while at the same time deducting from the employees’ wages the contributions to the Social Insurance Fund.

It is a provocation for workers and society when a company which is considered the “flagship of entrepreneurship” fails to pay its workers’ accrued wages. The provocation is even bigger as companies with different names, but with the same owners, take on public works and earn millions of euros!

As a Committee, we have called on the Government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to act towards the Saudi Arabian authorities and request information on the process of liquidation of the company’s assets. At the same time, we called on the Ministry of Labour to study the Social Insurance Law and submit an amendment to prevent such phenomena from recurring in the future.

We have decided to come back on the issue in order to continue the discussion next February.