THE ROW over the government’s refusal to reduce heating fuel duty took on new dimensions yesterday after coalition party AKEL accused Finance Minister Michalis Sarris’ of taking a neo-liberal approach to the island’s economy.
House president Demetris Christofias, who on Monday failed to convince President Tassos Papadopoulos to change his stance and order a reduction on fuel duty, turned his attentions to Minister Sarris.
Talking to CyBC on Tuesday night, Christofias stressed AKEL’s “intense and radical” disagreement with the philosophy that characterises the thoughts, actions and policy of the Finance Minister.
“It is a neo-liberal way of handling the entire economy and development, which we do not agree with and Mr Sarris is well aware of this; I have told him before”, said Christofias.
“The President appoints the Finance Minister; we are not requesting he fires him, but we are asking for the President, who is the state’s leader and appoints the ministers, to continue to have the last say when it comes to ordering financial measures.
“I’m not saying that he doesn’t; maybe Mr Sarris convinced him”.
The House President also revealed that based on his party’s evaluations, AKEL disagreed with the image that was projected by the ministry regarding state economy.
“I don’t agree with the estimation that if the government is burdened with £6 million this year [if duty is reduced by three cents per litre], we will have a state deficit so much higher, it will be outside the prescriptions set by the government.
Our estimations are different. It is very possible that by the end of the year, the deficit will just surpass one per cent”.
Finally, he said AKEL had not been consulted by the government before the decision was made not to reduce duty; something he said he had complained about to Papadopoulos.
Government Spokesman Christodoulos Pashiardis came to Sarris’ defence after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, stressing that the Finance Minister was not acting on his own but as part of the collective body of the Cabinet.
“The Finance Minister, as member of the collective body of the Cabinet, does not exercise personal financial policies. The government’s financial policy is set in the frames of the pre-election programme of the coalition, which was agreed by all coalition parties, and the aim of this policy was and remains the steady rise of the viability levels of society and especially the strengthening of the more vulnerable sectors of the public”.
“This financial policy, which is decided on collectively, is promoted and implemented by the Finance Minister, and definitely this policy cannot be described as ‘neo-liberal’,” said Pashiardis. In the last four years, social benefits have increased by 240 per cent, with the basic receiver being the public that needs financial support.”
Meanwhile, political parties continued to voice their opinions yesterday, with AKEL’s Stavros Evagorou stressing the need for a legislative policy and not a policy of charity. He added that the government could not keep invoking the Maastricht criteria, because the public does not need criteria to warm up, but heating fuel.
“In the public economy sector, it appears that certain things are being presented a little worse than what they actually are. You can imagine how much bitterness someone can feel when we estimate that heating fuel is not one per cent of the state deficit, but 0.1 per cent”, said the AKEL deputy.
“This six million that was given with the reduction by three cents last year is what we are asking is returned to the public.”
Lefteris Christoforou of DISY added that Sarris didn’t have his own government and that its policy was anything but friendly towards the public.
But Chairwoman of the House Finance Committee, Antigoni Papadopoulou of DIKO, blamed the uproar on the pre-election period for the municipal elections and said the state now needed to concentrate more on national matters and Cyprus’ entry into the eurozone.
