No to the surrender of our national assets to private capital

 

Statement by Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL

AKEL C.C Press Office, 28th March 2015, Nicosia

 

The recent developments with regards the Semi-governmental organizations confirm our predictions about the Government’s intentions and goals. Whether intentionally or unintentionally it is causing enormous damage to the Semi-governmental organizations by degrading their value and will sell them off for next to nothing.

A first example is the handling of the issues relating to the Cyprus Electricity Authority (EAC). The proposals that were submitted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry in the Public Consultation for the Regulatory Framework of the Electricity market in Cyprus are a monument of deficiency and promotion of private to the detriment of public interest. With these proposals, the Government acknowledged its yearning to dismantle the EAC, especially its position for the sale or rent to the private sector of the profitable electricity production plants. This is neither about a promotion or inclusion of competitiveness in the electricity market, as the Government had proclaimed it would do. This is undoubtedly about surrendering our national assets to private capital and promoting the creation of private monopolies in the electricity market.

Another glaring example is the scheming to diminish the scope and therefore the value of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA). A contributing factor to this scheming, evidently on the instructions of its political heads, is the Commissioner for Privatization, who burdened CYTA with the cost of tens of millions of Euros. On the pretext of the further examination of the company’s investment in 4G technology, which had been prepared well in advance, it delayed and is delaying this investment for many months, at the same time when CYTA’s competitors have already invested in this technology.

The Government of Anastasiades and DISY Rally Party is trying to do today, what governments in other countries did twenty and twenty-five years ago and who are now trying to correct it. It is characteristic that today countries such as Germany, Finland and the Netherlands are regaining control over sectors that had been privatized due to the negative social and economic impacts that subsequently followed.

In Germany over half of local electricity power supply centres have been renationalized. In Finland 53% of the national energy system has been put under state ownership again, due to the high costs consumers were called upon to pay. In the Netherlands, the European Court of Justice ruled in favor of the country’s state legislation which prohibits the privatization of the energy and natural gas distribution networks so that the public interest and the competence of the network are protected.

So why does the Anastasiades Government insist on seeking to copy failed models and disastrous recipes? It does so in order to serve private capital and no-one else. The Finance Minister himself admitted in an interview that the money from the privatization of CYTA isn’t necessarily for the purposes of the Memorandum. Despite all this, they are moving ahead bent on their ideological fixations, insisting that this is a necessary structural change.

AKEL is opposed to the sell-off of public utility organizations which will lead to a sharp rise in unemployment, an increase in the prices for services provided and to the deterioration in their quality, as has occurred in many cases abroad. That is why we demand from the Government that it ends immediately the procedures for the privatizations of the Semi-state organizations and work to modernize and not sell them off for next to nothing.