THE GOVERNMENT and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority yesterday called a glitzy news conference to convince the public that CyTA would be a winner in the pending project to liberalise the telecommunications sector.
Minister of Communications and Public Works Averoff Neophytou headed the conference to support the liberalisation, essential if Cyprus is to join the European Union.
Under the banner “Dynamism in a new era”, computer generated images of “an average forty-something woman” despairing over the confusing and time-consuming labyrinth of the old CyTA, were traded in for pictures of a new CyTA, building its way to success.
But under the glossy veneer of spin, CyTA General Manager Nicos Timotheou yesterday fended off criticism that his organisation was ill equipped to face a cutthroat private sector in less than 21 months time, provided Parliament approves the bill to strip the organisation of her semi-governmental status.
He told the Cyprus Mail that the legislation was the most important hurdle to overcome, saying that CyTA had been working towards the goal of going public since the early 1990s.
Timotheou said the current process of hiring even just 20 new staff could take up to two years before government approval was granted by all the necessary bodies: the Communications and Finance Ministries, the Planning Department, the Council of Ministers and Parliament.
Customer service, greater efficiency and better use of new technology are at the centre of the efforts to turn CyTA into a successful public company.
A voluntary early retirement scheme was set up in the early 1990s to weed out employees over 54 and make way for younger staff with qualifications better suited to the new technology.
This scheme shed some 100 employees last year, reducing the total number of staff to 2,400 – vacancies Timotheou says will be filled soon.
New salaries will be supplemented by rewards and incentives, which have already been piloted.
Once CyTA goes public, six per cent of shares will be made available to employees.
Employees reluctant to join the private sector will retain their civil service salaries, working as sub-contractors for the new CyTA.
“Thank God, I think we are optimistic. The network is very modern after we have replaced them all with a digital one. Our mobile system is very good, though sometimes we get complaints about coverage and at the same time, the early retirement scheme has made the staff more entrepreneurial, in line with private companies,” said the general manager.
But a CyTA insider yesterday admitted that no timetable had yet been drawn up for the massive overhaul of the organisation, due to completed in less than 21 months.
“But, everything will be completed by January 1, 2003,” he said.
The government tried to quash criticism that CyTA would flounder in the private sector, with statistics from EU countries that have already liberalised their telecommunication sectors.
Private companies other than the former state authority have not cornered any of the Danish, British or Spanish markets; just four per cent in Italy and 19 per cent in Portugal. The figures in Belgium, France and Germany were 50 per cent, 54 per cent and 58 per cent respectively.
Only a Swedish experience would have wiped CyTA off the face of the earth: private companies there have cornered 90 per cent of the market.
CyTA said yesterday that they were aware of three Greek companies and one French company that have investigated joining the Cyprus market in 2003.
“But it’s a very small market. CyTA already has a 35 per cent penetration of the mobile market, but nobody knows what’s going to happen,” said Timotheou.
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.
