Statement by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A.Kyprianou on the Economy
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 27th May 2020, Nicosia
The President of the Republic is due to announce measures on the Economy this evening. We don’t know at this time what these measures will be, but I want to reiterate what AKEL’s view is.
From the very beginning, we have set a clear goal on issues relating to the economy. Working people should continue to have an income, the self-employed, small and medium-sized enterprises and the big ones should be supported to cover immediate operating expenses in order so as to overcome the current difficult conditions. The state should to be able to finance its needs. That is why all the proposals and suggestions we have submitted all this time have moved in this direction.
From the outset, we insisted on the need for the State to provide direct support to SME’s and the self-employed, resulting in the government including the provision for direct support of €100 million in the state guarantees bill, which it subsequently withdrew along with the entire bill. We expect the Government’s new announcements to include this proposal again, which in our view must be increased.
I want to make it clear that we also insist that there must be a prudent management. We must not waste money. But we do not accept the government’s view that there is no money. They had included a provision in the first bill they had submitted for subsidising interest rates with a sum of €250 million. So the €250 million does exist. They also provided for support of workers, the self-employed and businesses with the sum of €1.32 billion. We heard the Minister of Labor yesterday state that €219 million have been spent so far. So from this sum too money is expected to be saved. Therefore the possibility exists to provide support to SME’s with an amount bigger than €100 million.
At the same time, AKEL believes that the proposals recently approved by the House of Representatives are a positive step, but they are insufficient. They do not support, do not solve and do not address the problem adequately. The government has a responsibility to intervene because the voluntary character of the measures it has taken so far on the issue of rents leaves thousands of small and medium-sized businesses trapped at the mercy of each given owner.
