BETWEEN 1996 and 1999, consumers paid an astonishing £161 million extra on fuel through prices imposed by the previous administration with the old pricing system, Trade and Industry Minister George Lillikas accused yesterday.
The minister was responding to an attack by opposition DISY, which charged that consumers were not benefiting from the substantial falls in the price of crude oil because the government was not doing enough.
Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Lillikas accused DISY of serving the interests of the petrol companies and not consumers for the 10-year duration of its administration.
“Despite pleas from parliament and reports in the media, the DISY government maintained the dated PNBS (Price Negotiations Balance Sheet) system (a formula for calculating fuel prices, which guaranteed companies a set profit), which served exclusively the interests of the fuel companies,” Lillikas said.
He said that for 10 years, when the trade minister was responsible for setting the prices, the House was asking for cuts in the same way as hikes were imposed.
“Instead, from 1993 to 1999, the DISY government, with the prices it imposed, burdened Cypriot consumers with £161 million extra, through unjustifiably high prices,” the minister said.
He added: “They imposed a stealth tax of £23 million every year.”
From that, £118.4 million went to the state coffer and the rest to the petrol companies.
Lillikas said the surplus would have been even higher if the state had not allowed the fuel companies to include their own unjustified expenses, which were ultimately paid for by consumers.
“This was this practice we inherited and did away with,” the minister said.
Concerning DISY’s claim that since October there should have been a 30 per cent cut in the retail price of fuel, Lillikas said that, based on the ministry’s study of one big company, petrol prices were cut by 28 per cent, less than what was expected, though the price of diesel had gone down by 23 per cent, instead of the expected 7.8 per cent.
The same went for heating fuel, which went down by 31 per cent while the expected decrease was 6.7 per cent and kerosene, which saw a 16 per cent cut instead of 14 per cent.
According to figures published by the EU, Cypriot consumers pay the lowest prices on petrol and diesel, Lillikas said.
He said consumers paid 18.2 cents less on a litre of petrol and 12.5 less on diesel than the average price in the rest of the EU –64.2 cents per litre of petrol and 66.4 cents per litre of diesel.
But the minister also had a few words for petrol station owners who delayed changing their prices for a few days, whenever there were cuts.
He made public a letter he had sent companies, warning them to advise their representatives to cease the practice immediately.
“If we see that certain owners continue the unacceptable practice I warn you that I will be left with no other choice than to set a ceiling on the price of fuel, in accordance with the law,” the letter said.
