JUNE 27 will be a “black day for the country”, a senior trade unionist warned yesterday in the wake of a 24-hour warning strike over the electricity authority’s objection to the states plans for a floating LNG terminal.
Power supplies were not disrupted during the 24-hour stoppage by the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) yesterday, but employees have warned that next time round things will be far worse.
The EAC’s production department operated on skeleton staff, while support and maintenance crews were on standby in case of any glitches in the grid. No emergencies were reported and the strike went largely unnoticed by the public.
But the semi-governmental organization has threatened to escalate its measures on Wednesday, 27 June.
“June 27 will be a black day for the country, unless officials wake up,” trade unionist Andreas Panorkos warned yesterday.
EAC unions were yesterday coy on the impact of the strike two weeks down the line.
Demetris Constandinou, secretary of trade union SIDIKEK-EAC, told the Mail that technical experts were still working out what steps should be taken.
But Constandinou allayed fears of a general blackout.
“That will not happen under any circumstances. The least we want is to cause trouble for people, especially in the hot summer days,” he added.
He said one “possibility” was that the EAC network would work below capacity, with the system administrator deciding where power would be cut off.
“We won’t be pulling the switch,” he added.
Nevertheless, maintenance and support crews would definitely put their tools down.
Yesterday’s walkout was called in protest at a government decision to invite tenders for a floating Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal.
Two weeks ago the Cabinet gave the green light to speed up the creation of a land-based LNG facility, while at the same time opening a competition to set up an offshore unit for a period of five years.
The state-run electricity utility is against a floating storage unit for LNG. It argues the technology is untested, potentially unreliable, and could result in wasting millions of taxpayers’ money.
It is championing a land-based liquefaction facility, but the government argues that won’t be ready before 2013 or even 2014. In the meantime, Cypriot consumers will continue paying for the far more expensive diesel fuel, the government says.
Panorkos said yesterday the EAC board had yet to be handed the government plan for the LNG project, which is being spearheaded by Trade Minister Antonis Michaelides.
In a rather baffling statement, government spokesman Vasilis Palmas said that once the Cabinet finalised the document, it was up to the body to decide whether to forward it to the interested parties.
This contradicted a statement he made last Friday, when he said the plan would be handed over to the EAC board.
“Of course Cabinet decisions are not classified. On the other hand, you understand, they are not leaflets that are distributed on street corners,” Palmas told newsmen.
From leaks, it is understood the plan calls for the creation of a “Public LNG Corporation”, in which the state will have the largest stake with 51 per cent.
Thirty-nine per cent will go to the EAC, and 11 per cent to the private sector.
“They want us to foot the bill for this experiment,” said Panorkos yesterday.
“They want to bring us in as accomplices to this crime they are committing.”
The EAC unions have been far more militant than management and the board of directors – and this despite the fact that Trade Minister Michaelides urged the board to quit if they disagreed with government policy.
EAC board chairman Charilaos Stavrakis tried to walk a fine line. On the one hand, he disagreed with strike measures, as these “solved nothing” and only served to inconvenience the public. On the other hand, Stavrakis acknowledged that employees had a say in the future of their organisation.
“For 50 odd years, the EAC has on its own secured all the island’s fuel needs.
Now, they [the government] want us to buy fuel from faceless multinational corporations, who will set prices.
“This idea of a floating unit is extremely unreliable. What if the seas are rough one day, and the ship transporting LNG cannot make the trip to Cyprus?
“Foreign experts are convinced that a country cannot depend on an offshore unit alone. A floating unit only works as a supplementary source, not a primary source for electricity.”
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