THE HOUSE Plenum is expected to approve a €7.2 million compensation plan for the employees of bankrupt, state-owned airline Eurocypria this Thursday.
The draft bill was discussed at the House Finance Committee yesterday, which decided to investigate claims by the doomed airline’s 254 former workers that they never received payment for the hours they worked leading up to Eurocypria’s bankruptcy.
The payments owed by the liquidator – amounting to €2.5 million – are in addition to the €1.2 million the workers are seeking from the government in the form of VAT owed.
Spokesmen for the workers’ unions – SEK’s Eliseos Michail, Yiannakis Souroulas from SIDIKEK-PEO and former captain Charalambos Demetriades – repeated the former employees’ plea for the €7.2 million bill’s swift approval.
Michail pointed out that the vast majority of the workers were still unemployed since now-defunct Eurocypria ceased operations in November 2010 and underlined the need for an immediate approval of the bill.
He also called on the Finance Ministry to coordinate the relevant state services so the workers can be paid the €3.7 million they are owed in wages and VAT.
Souroulas, in turn, called on the state to show the necessary sensitivity and move straight ahead with the compensations procedure, as there had already been enough delays.
Speaking after the meeting, Committee Chairman, DIKO’s Nicolas Papadopoulos said he was concerned to hear that the former employees had not yet been paid for their hours worked, nor had the VAT been returned.
“For reasons that haven’t been explained, (the VAT) has not been returned,” said Papadopoulos..
He added that the delays by the liquidator to cough up the €2.5 million the workers are owed was “an embarrassment to the state, because apart from its responsibility in Eurocypria’s outcome, it also has a duty to ensure the staff’s wages are paid on time”.
He added: “No one is pleased by the fact that we are being forced to pay out compensations to people who lost their jobs due to omissions of the state, which is in charge of managing the specific company.”
Papadopoulos concluded that his Committee would address a letter to the Finance Ministry as well as the liquidator, “to clarify the true events”.
Eurocypria was established on 25 March 1992 as a wholly owned subsidiary of state carrier Cyprus Airways. The government convinced parliament in February last year to inject Eurocypria with €35 million, to ensure it had “a viable future”. This was refuted by the final outcome, however, when the charter airline was forced to declare bankruptcy in November 2010.
