Turkish Cypriot taxpayers ‘footing 10 million TL monthly bill’ for airport electricity

Turkish Cypriot taxpayers are paying 10 million TL (€264,620) every month to pay for Ercan (Tymbou) airport’s electricity consumption, the north’s electricity authority Kib-Tek’s workers’ trade union El-Sen leader Ahmet Tugcu said on Friday.

Speaking to Kibris Postasi TV, he said taxpayers are footing the cost of extra electricity being used by the airport, which is then charged to the airport’s holding company T&T at Kib-Tek’s basic rate, thus creating a 10 million TL negative discrepancy between the price of the electricity consumed and the amount charged every single month.

He also referred to the fact that T&T are only paying enough to service their debt to Kib-Tek and are still not paying their electricity bills, despite a contract having been signed between T&T, Kib-Tek and the ‘government’ to ensure that the debt be serviced, and future bills be paid.

As a result, he said, T&T’s debt to Kib-Tek has now reached 105 million TL (€2.8m), with Tugcu’s appearance on television coming less than an hour before Kib-Tek announced that private consumers who owe them more than 675TL (€18) will have their electricity cut off if their bill is not paid by the close of business on Monday.

Tugcu had demanded in June that T&T’s contract with Kib-Tek for the debt to be repaid be cancelled as soon as possible, but also noted at the time that Kib-Tek was given “political instructions” to not cut the power supply to the airport by politicians from ruling coalition parties the UBP and the DP.

His statements also come just over a week after T&T general manager Serhat Ozcelik insisted that an on paper 1 billion TL (€29.8 million) financial loss made by the company had simply come about as the result of “the company’s financial structure” and legal tax avoidance mechanisms.

His claim was that T&T had in fact made a profit €1.1m, but through legal methods was able to pay no tax by spreading the cost of previous investments over to last year’s balance sheets, thus recording an on-paper €29.8m loss.

He also claimed that instead of paying tax, the company is also engaged in a revenue-sharing scheme with the ‘government’, though revenue-sharing schemes and paying tax are typically not mutually exclusive.