War of words over EAC continues despite cabinet decision

By Athena Karsera

A CABINET decision not to sack the Electricity Authority board appears to have done little to ease tension between the board and Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis.

Rolandis has been pressing for the dismissal of the electricity board following the disclosure that board members had bought land from the Church in Limassol for well above its market value. The board, he insists, had also failed to commission an independent valuation of the land, on which the authority planned to build its Limassol headquarters.

Electricity Board member Renos Prenzas, speaking in a radio interview yesterday, called on Rolandis to accept the Cabinet’s decision, saying “if the charges had stood, the law would have ensured the dismissal of the Board.”

Prenzas called Rolandis a “crusader of the fourth crusade,” adding that “anyone who knew about history would know what I mean.”

He was referring to the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by an army of Western crusaders. The events of the Fourth Crusade are widely interpreted as having weakened the Byzantine Empire and prepared its final demise to the Ottoman Turks.

Rolandis appeared unperturbed by the criticism. Also speaking on radio, the Commerce Minister said Prenzas “… can do whatever he wants until his term ends in eight months.”

“I don’t know where we are going to end up if there are people who, whatever they do, cannot be dismissed,” Rolandis lamented. “These people are there and won’t leave because that is the way they want it and because there are laws to protect them.”

Government spokesman Christos Stylianides yesterday refused to be drawn on Thursday’s Cabinet decision not to sack the Electricity board.

In a statement, the Cabinet said that board members had been careless in their decision to buy the land, but added that it could not legally sack them.

The government, however, said it planned to hold consultations with House deputies to prepare a draft bill providing for stricter supervision of semi- government organisations.

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