By George Psyllides
THE HOUSE of Representatives last night halted a planned price hike for telephone charges to study whether or not they were justified after the Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) recently announced a surplus of around £200 million.
The increases were part of a price restructuring programme, which started at the end of last year.
The programme aims at eliminating the subsidisation of one CyTA service by another, which would bring the authority in line with European Union directives.
In the final phase of the plan, which was due to go into effect tomorrow, would have seen the cost of local calls rise to two cents per two minutes at peak time instead of the current three minutes.
Internet rates would have gone up from 1.3 cents per four minutes to two cents while the landline connection fee would have set consumers back £30 instead of the existing £25.
But more than a few eyebrows were raised a couple of weeks ago after CyTA posted a surplus of around £200 million.
The surplus has been the focal point of discussion with some deputies demanding that CyTA returned the money to the public because as a semi- governmental organisation it was illegal to accumulate a surplus.
At the House plenum last night deputies could not agree whether to freeze the hikes until December 20, as ruling DISY had proposed, or February 28, as was held by the opposition parties.
The three-month period, it was argued, was necessary for the House to look into CyTA’s finances and, more specifically, its costs and profits per service, surpluses, etc.
DISY deputies also proposed an amendment to current legislation to keep Internet charges at their current levels indefinitely.
In the end the House upheld the opposition’s proposal by a majority vote.
Twenty-two — AKEL, DIKO and Greens – voted for the three-month delay while 16 DISY deputies abstained.
And this despite a last ditch morning attempt by Communications Minister Averof Neophytou to convince the House not to delay the hikes.
During discussion of the issue, House Communications Committee Chairman DIKO deputy Nicos Pittokopitis criticised the authority’s management for their overall conduct and made it clear that CyTA’s financial affairs would be closely scrutinised.
The outspoken deputy suggested CyTA was acting surreptitiously and wondered why they had ignored three calls in the past six years to answer why they had connected all phone subscribers to 090-services.
Pittokopitis said it was unprecedented for subscribers to be connected to a service they never asked for and be charged a £5 fee if they wanted to disconnect the service.
DIKO Chairman Tasos Papadopoulos said CYTA’s finances were never really checked and suggested the authority was being rather “sparing” with the truth.
He said CYTA had all the time until February 28 to present the analyses of its economics and suggested that the island’s obligation towards Europe was to get rid of subsidisation, something already done through legislation.
