Enough is enough

‘ENOUGH’ was the message yesterday from consumer rights activists, outraged with what is essentially a new tax for carbon emissions.

The Cyprus Consumers and Quality of Life Association is urging people to cancel their standing orders on electrical bills to avoid paying the three per cent surcharge, which they feel is an outrage.

“What fault is it of the Cypriot consumer if the handsomely paid executives of the EAC have throughout the years made the wrong decisions and invested in the wrong facilities that use high-pollutant fuels, or if the state has taken too long to bring natural gas?” asked a statement released by the association yesterday.

It called the decision to let users pay the carbon emissions fine “unfair, arbitrary and whimsical.” That consumers had no choice but to pay up—since the EAC is the sole electricity provider in Cyprus—made this an even harder pill to swallow.

But association head Loucas Aristodemous says people do have a choice:

“They should take their invoices to the EAC and tell the cashier there that they will pay the amount, minus the three per cent extra charge.

“What will the EAC do then? Cut off the power?”

Aristodemou says that if enough people “stand up to the EAC” in this way the provider would think twice about going after delinquent payers or taking them to court.

“It’s time that someone said ‘No more’. For too long Cypriot consumers have been too tolerant. If we don’t react now, then next year this indirect tax could be 6 six per cent,” he told the Mail.

“I’m not aware if there is a precedent for this…I don’t think so,” he added.

The association says it can provide legal advice to consumers who refuse to pay the three per cent surcharge, and is considering “suing” the EAC, although Aristodemou did not elaborate on this.

The association’s press release called the EAC “an authority of many sins”—a play on words taken from the Troparion of Saint Kassiani, a liturgy sung on Holy Tuesday. The original verse from the liturgy reads: “Sensing your divinity Lord, a woman of many sins.”

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.