Minister accused of painting far ‘too rosy picture’ of Larnaca project

Troubles are far from over for the besieged Larnaca marina and port project, the constituency’s Diko MP Christos Orphanides said on Tuesday.

Speaking to the state broadcaster, Orphanides said that contrary to the government’s optimistic projections, matters are far from in the clear, with looming court proceedings by disgraced Kition Ocean Holdings on the horizon, as well as several other serious loose ends.

The MP moreover accused the state and Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades of persisting in “painting a rosy picture” when this was far from true.

Vafeades for his part, denied the accusation and told the CyBC he was “troubled” by Orphanides’ position, claiming the state had done everything in its power to behave transparently and had handled the fallout of the collapsed deal well.

The prospect of Kition pursuing its loss of revenue as well as capital claims in the courts is very real and this alone could set the project back at least five or six years, the MP claimed.

“All our planning, surveys and experts may be moot. This is a substantial loose end,” Orphanides said.

The MP proceeded to cast doubt over the fact that investors were seriously interested in the project, rubbishing notions that Cypriot investors could be in the mix, as stated by the minister after Monday’s ad hoc meeting.

“We are looking at foreign investors,” he said, but “what we have seen so far are simply speculators. Serious investors just came and left”.

The MP took to task the state’s disingenuous approach and accused officials of offering up false hopes, citing as an example Vafeades’ public statements in May that Qatar was interested in the project and President Nikos Christodoulides’ assurances that the project would proceed as planned without delays.

The MP also lambasted the ministry for its reticence in sharing details of the deal signed with the previous investor, saying that, despite it now being available, it had proven so convoluted that “ten lawyers each [were needed] to study the contract with Kition and make sense of it.”

“The grace period is over,” Orphanides said, adding, “something substantial needs to happen.”

In addition to the lack of clarity over which aspects of the port’s traffic would be taken over by the port in Vasiliko, Orphanides also raised the once-floated matter of residential and hotel units to be built adjacent to the marina.

The MP said no one would invest in properties near a port where tons of dust are released from cargoes of gypsum and animal fodder [the port’s main cargo].

All that happened on Monday was a return to the drawing board and assessing the feasibility of enlarging or deepening the port, which has already been on the shelf for ten years, he said.

The transport minister for his part, speaking on the same programme, reiterated that the state, in its intention to “act with transparency and in the spirit of participatory democracy” had requested input from all local stakeholders on how to proceed.

He denied accusations of holding off on making the Kition contract available, saying “We gave them the contract without any issue and now they say they don’t understand it.”

“I never made things look rosy. Things don’t always go as we wish,” Vafeades said. “We said we would go through with the project one way or another and this is what we are doing.”

The state had handled a decision made by a private investor [to drop out] and had taken over the port’s operation “without a glitch”, the minister said.

“Correct studies must be done and the ad hoc committee has set a common course,” he added, implying the Diko MP’s views were not those of the majority.

All procedures and timeframes were being openly shared, and nothing was being hidden, the minister insisted.