Government sells-off profitable semi-state organisations

 

Statement of Stavros Evagorou, Deputy Parliamentary Spokesperson of AKEL-Left-New Forces

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 29th December 2014, Nicosia

 

One of the key pre-election pledges made by President Anastasiades, and indeed in written form, was the pladge made in public that he would not proceed to the privatisation of profitable Semi-state organisations.

As in the case of other pledges, so in this case too, this pledge was broken too within a very short space of time. In the beginning the government and ruling forces were hiding behind the provisions of the Memorandum and the Troika’s replies. When it had eventually become clear that our country wouldn’t have need of possible revenues from privatisations, they then told the people via the Minister of Finance himself that privatisations will be enforced not so much for economic but for structural reasons aiming to attract investment to Cyprus.

Since then the government and ruling forces closed the Cyprus State Fairs Authority overnight and are deliberately leading Cyprus Airways to closure, while we haven’t seen any foreign investment.

Regretfully the Government is promoting rapidly the selling-off of profitable Semi-state organisations which are the property of the Cypriot people and constitute a social asset and wealth.

At the same time, within the framework of the government’s dogmatic ideological insistence on promoting the selling-off of our national wealth, it seems that it is also carefully preparing the groundwork that will favour the prospective buyers. In the case of the selling-off of the Cyprus Electricity Authority CYTA it is clearly obvious that these conditions are already being created, indeed even before the official procedure has commenced, to suit and favour the German multinational company Deutsche Telecom, which the government and ruling forces, illegally, have ensured is provided with preferential information.

As AKEL we consider that the selling-off of important Semi-state organisations is unacceptable and provocative. However, we also consider as provocative the machinations and scheming, as well as the government’s preliminary decision to pre-select and to whom it will hand over the Semi-state organisations.

In conclusion, in expressing our strong and complete disagreement with the promotion of privatisations by the government, as AKEL, in cooperation with other political forces, we shall wage the battle, both within and outside the House of Representatives, aiming to oppose and stop the destructive for the country and working people policy of selling-off our national wealth.