Parliament OKs budgets of 13 SGOs

By Elias Hazou

LAWMAKERS on Thursday grudgingly approved the budgets of 13 semi-governmental organisations amid gripes they did not have enough time to properly scrutinise the balance sheets.

During the last session of the plenum before the Easter break, all MPs present voted in favour, bar Greens deputy Giorgos Perdikis who abstained.

Some MPs complained they had had to stay up all night to speed-read through hundreds of pages, leaving them scarce time to spot any controversial funds.

This year, the budgets took longer than usual to be submitted to the legislature, resulting in several SGOs paying salaries for two months without the funds having previously been okayed.

As a result, the budgets were virtually approved as submitted, save for some minor adjustments. Legislators did not release a €10m fund from the Electricity Authority’s (EAC) budget allocated to an early retirement scheme for 109 employees. Parliament also blocked a fund for the purchase of a vehicle for the executive chairman of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA).

Approved along with the CyTA budget was a voluntary retirement scheme designed for the early exit of some 550 employees.

At a time of austerity, most of the SGOs have seen their budgets cut back compared to last year.

The EAC budget for 2014, the largest of the items, comes to €753m (estimated revenues of €786m), followed by CyTA at €448m and the Cyprus Tourism Organisation at €50m.

The other SGOs whose budgets were passed yesterday were: Organisation for Storage and Management of Oil Stocks, the Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the Game Fund, Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, Cyprus Theatre Organisation, State Fairs Authority, Cyprus Land Development Corporation, Cyprus Sports Organisation, Cyprus News Agency and the Health Insurance Organisation.

The next session of the plenum is scheduled for May 8, while an extraordinary session will be held on the following day to discuss the House Ethics Committee’s report into the collapse of the economy and the banking system.

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