Grave political responsibility of the Cypriot Government

The General Auditor’s report – whose intervention AKEL had demanded – with regards the issue of the privatization of the New Limassol Port clearly confirms our denunciations about provisions in the contracts with private investors. These provisions either promote the interests of investors at the expense of the State (changing maps of marine areas to the detriment of the Cyprus Ports Authority, grace periods for companies) or demonstrate the messiness with which the government and ruling forces dealt with such a serious issue (an annual amount of 1.75 million Euros as compensation annually due to the allocation of space on a pier to an investor and its use by another investor, payment of 52% to the private investor from the 3.5 million Euros which the state collects annually from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Our denunciations about a huge increase in port charges have been confirmed, given that the General Auditor of the Republic refers to problematic provisions through which prohibitive fees up to 10 times higher than before are introduced (Anchorage, containers, passenger cruise charges).

At the same time, it becoming clear what our Party has been vocal about for two years now, namely that the selling off of public wealth and property to private capital will not increase the State’s revenues (up to 2 billion Euros as the Government and DISY party were constantly propagating), but over 25 years the Republic of Cyprus will get approximately 200 million less than the revenues it would have gained had the management of the Port Authority continued.

A key aspect of the report is its findings on the role of the Minister of Transport in the negotiations and drawing up of the contracts. The General Auditor states that he considers as unacceptable that a Minister participates in committees on issues concerning bids and that unfortunately the Minister and the Government did not take into consideration the proposals and comments of the Legal Service, that is the Legal Counsel the Republic, before signing the contracts, something that the Audit Office had pointed out in writing to the Minister of Transport, the Steering Committee and the Project Team.

With the General Auditor’s report the dimensions of the scandal, the sell-off and pillage at the expense of public wealth and public interest has been demonstrated. At the same time, the report reflects the collapse of the Government’s ideological obsessions for privatizations.

As AKEL, we urge the President of the Republic and the Government of DISY to assume their grave political responsibilities. If there is at long last any political sensitivity in this Government.

As for the Minister of Transport, we consider that the assumption of his political responsibility cannot be anything other than his immediate resignation. At the same time, we call for the waging of a disciplinary investigation within the Ministry of Transport and the forwarding of the General Auditor’s report to the Attorney General so as to investigate the possibility of criminal liabilities.

Statement by Costas Costa, member of the C.C. of AKEL and MP, on the Auditor General’s report on the privatization of the Limassol port