Government scrambles to rectify fuel cost fumble (Update)

Fresh Finance Minister Makis Keravnos’ first words in the post he assumed on Wednesday were “an unfortunate development” – commenting on an embarrassing mishap by the outgoing government, which led to higher fuel costs.

Officials scrambled to excuse a fumble, attributed to the handover of the presidency, as a result of which consumers are finding themselves having to pay increased prices for fuel as of Wednesday morning.

Head of the House finance committee, Christiana Erotokritou announced on CyBC radio that an extraordinary meeting has been called with the ministry of finance, to be followed by one in the House plenum to rescue the situation.

Keravnos clarified later in the day that parliament will be summoned for an urgent session at 4pm on Thursday to resolve the matter.

The apparent oversight concerns the reduction of consumer tax relief measure, in place since March 7, 2022, which, in September, the House had fast-tracked to be extended to end of February, and on February 22 the outgoing cabinet had approved for a further extension until April 30.

However, on Tuesday it became known that the bill in question had not been officially tabled in a timely manner and had yet to be approved at the plenum, an omission attributed by Erotokritou to the executive having failed to follow well-worn procedures.

“Parliament is not a post office, it is not always in session, there is a constitution which stipulates that bills must submitted to the plenary,” she told CyBC.

As a result, for an unknown duration of time, the resumption of consumption tax on fuels automatically falls back into place, increasing their price for consumers, who can expect to pay 7 cents more per litre for petrol, 8.3 cents more for diesel, and 6.4 cents more per litre for heating oil.

Head of the Consumer Association, Marios Droushiotis, also speaking on CyBC radio, pondered how it could be possible for the outgoing cabinet to not have foreseen the situation and acted to avoid it, at a time when people are so financially squeezed.

Referring to the fact that normally the next scheduled plenary meeting would have happened on March 9, Erotokritou said, “We will not allow Cypriot consumers to pay even one cent more for nine or ten days.”