THE ELECTRICITY Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has come under fire for allegedly failing properly to notify a man about work to be done on his Limassol property and then refusing to discuss any alternatives with him.
Fifty-three-year-old company director Paul Denham yesterday told the Cyprus Mail that he became aware of a problem while away on a foreign boating trip.
“My housekeeper called me late last year saying a man from the EAC had turned up to look at the transformer on my land and to conduct a survey,” he said. “A nearby property in Pareklishia wants to take power from it for their well and the EAC needed my permission as poles have to be erected on my land.”
The man from the EAC informed the housekeeper that they would be writing to Denham to explain the situation.
“I told the housekeeper to keep an eye out for the correspondence and that when it arrived, it should be forwarded onto my lawyer.”
Earlier last month, Denham, who was back in Cyprus, said that he received a letter from the EAC saying that he hadn’t responded to their previous two letters, resulting in them going to the Limassol District Council to get an order to carry out the work.
“I immediately visited them to see what was going on and discovered that they had sent the letters to the wrong address of PO Box 15 and not to PO Box 50. However, they insisted that the letters had been sent to the correct address by registered delivery but I have no record of receiving them. It can’t be a postal mistake as it’s so unlikely that it would have happened twice.”
The work involves the erection of telegraph poles on Denham’s property plus three wires carrying 22,000 volts being passed along the front and side elevations. “The house is worth one million pounds and this work will effectively ruin the sea view,” Denham said. “Alternative and more sympathetic routes, at the same cost, could be utilised but when I suggested this to them they told me ‘hard luck’, adding that I should have responded to their letters.
“Work is now imminent and I will end up with more telegraph poles on my property than anybody else in Pareklishia.”
He said that his solicitor objected in writing to the EAC, informing them that they will be taken to court if they carry out the work, but has received no response.
“They can’t have their cake and eat it. I’m in favour and always have been, of sitting down with them to discuss the alternatives. I suggested laying an underground cable but they said no chance as they only do so in city centres. The route they’re taking is ridiculous, stupid and illogical but they refuse to discuss any alternatives and have made up their minds. All I want to do is to make them realise the error of their ways in that the notification procedure wasn’t carried out correctly and get them to talk to me.”
He concluded by saying that what has happened to him “will hopefully bring to the attention of other property owners the fact that their property is not sacrosanct.”
An EAC spokesman said the organisation does not comment on individual cases that are pending, adding that the EAC “is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to serve the community. There are laws about what we can and cannot do and we always operate within these laws.”
