THE HOUSE yesterday put £15 million included in the budget for the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) on hold after deputies raised objections about the nature of the investments for which the money is earmarked.
The House unanimously approved the around £311 million budget although £3 million to be invested in an Israeli company for an underwater cable linking Cyprus to Israel concentrated most of the criticism because of the neighbouring country’s treatment of the Palestinian people.
The second amount put on hold concerned a £12 million investment in Russia, which, according to DIKO deputy Nicos Pittokopitis, did not look like a safe venture.
KISOS Deputy Doros Theodorou told the plenum that his party would vote against the £3 million if the Israeli company was state-owned.
“We would have no problem if the company is private but if it is state-owned it would be wrong, in light of the situation in Palestine,” Theodorou said.
George Varnavas of KISOS proposed that the £3 million earmarked for the Israeli investment should be cut altogether.
In the end the plenum unanimously voted to put the case on hold until CyTA provided more information on the matter.
Pittokopitis said that his party’s position had always been to support CyTA but wondered why the £12 million for Russia had appeared in the organisation’s budget for a second year running when the authority had been advised against the venture by experts who said it would be “catastrophic”.
The plenum lifted its hold on an additional £30 million earmarked for a subsidiary company, Digimed, after assurances from the authority and the Communications Minister that the House would be briefed and kept informed on the course of the cash.
New Horizons deputy Christos Clerides voiced a note of caution, arguing that the authority seemed unready to explain the particulars of the investment in the company and that would make scrutiny difficult.
AKEL deputy Andreas Christou said, although cautious in the beginning, his party was satisfied with the assurances given by CyTA and the minister.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
