December electricity bills down 24 per cent

By Athena Karsera

DECEMBER Electricity bills will be down up to 24 per cent on the previous year, but that’s no reason to waste power, according to the Electricity Authority, which is trying to balance the windfall reductions with a power saving campaign.

Speaking yesterday, the EAC’s press officer Tassos Roussos said “the big reductions seen in electricity bills lately are due to the lowering of petrol prices in the international market.”

The lower prices had prompted the Authority to lower the cost of electricity per kilowatt, he said.

The spokesman added that the average household’s December 1998 electricity bill would be up to 24 per cent cheaper per kilowatt than that for December 1997.

But in spite of the lower prices, and in an effort to prevent waste, the Authority has fixed a set price for the first 120 kilowatts used, thereafter raising the price up to 200 kilowatts, and again after that.

The parallel saving publicity campaign will continue until the end of January, Roussos said.

In March last year, the EAC came under pressure to cut bills to reflect savings made on cutting electricity supplies to the occupied areas.

Consumers still pay a 15 per cent supercharge on their bills, which used to subsidise the supply of power to the occupied areas.

This is no longer necessary since the construction of a power station in the occupied areas. But the surcharge remains.

At the time Roussos said bills would not go down because “the EAC has a very large expansion programme.” Money raised from the surcharge would be channelled into investment and expansion.

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