Life and reality itself has completely refuted Government-DISY obsessions on privatisations

Statement by Georgos Loucaides, AKEL C.C. Press Spokesperson

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 25th August 2015, Nicosia

 

Yesterday the President of the governing DISY party Averof Neofytou stated that the way AKEL will react and mobilise on the issue of privatisations is predictable.

If any political party is predictable then it is DISY itself who, it is true, persists dogmatically on the policy that serves the interests of big private interests, as well as promoting the policy of privatizations. DISY dogmatically persists in demonizing everything that is public, whilst at the same time idealizing everything that is private.

At the same time AKEL wants to remind Mr. Neophytou, DISY party and the government that the Cyprus economy’s destruction did not come from the public sector or from the profitable Semi-governmental institutions, but was wholly and exclusively due to the bank robbery and the collapse of the banking sector that was the spearhead of the private sector.

Furthermore, we want to remind the President of DISY that life and reality itself has completely refuted DISY party’s forecasts, assessments and obsessions on the issue of privatizations. Mr. Neophytou had predicted the collapse of the Semi-governmental Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA) when it was entering the field of free competition. In actual fact, since then, CYTA, together with the other profitable Semi-governmental organizations, have contributed hundreds of millions of Euros in the form of dividends to the state and this demonstrates that not only have they withstood the competition, but on the contrary they have remained strong and effective in their operation without this meaning that there wasn’t and isn’t room for improvement and modernization that are required.

There is something else in which DISY and the government are predictable. They are predictable in the ease with which they break their promises and pledges. AKEL recalls that before the presidential elections the government and DISY party made a pledge in writing and verbally to the workers employed in the Semi-governmental organizations and to the people of Cyprus that it was not going to proceed with the privatization of the profitable Semi-governmental organizations. In fact they did precisely the opposite and say what they have always stated in truth, that is to say, that privatizations are necessary and beneficial for the economy, supposedly for a “modern reform”.