The Larnaca municipality on Thursday announced its intention to hold a demonstration to protest the government’s handling of the town’s marina and port.

The municipal council voted unanimously in favour of the move at its meeting on Wednesday, saying a protest will be held “in the event that the government’s decision on the port and marina is not changed or that new decisions are not satisfactory”.

As such, the council’s development committee is to meet on Friday to organise the protest.

The municipality’s distaste comes from the government’s decision to open a new tender for a private company or two to operate and maintain the port and marina during a transition period not exceeding five years while long-term investors to upgrade both sites’ infrastructure are sought.

The council said this decision “poses a serious risk to the town”, saying that “such agreements and public contracts in the past have created many risks and problems, with endless extensions and time-consuming legal proceedings”.

“The implementation of this decision for a temporary private operator which would not be obliged to invest even a single euro in the port may delay the progress and implementation of the vision for serious investments for many years,” they said.

They added that the transport ministry had said the ports authority “must focus on the construction of ports in Vasiliko and in Polis Chrysochous” and that for this reason, it cannot stretch to operate the Larnaca port as well, but that the ports authority said it had told the municipality it had proposed to the government that it run the Larnaca port itself.

“The ports authority itself says that not only is it capable of temporarily managing the port, but it can also make serious investments which will contribute to the port’s development. However, this possibility was not considered at all by the ministry,” the council said.

On the matter of the marina, the council said that seeking a temporary private operator “may have even more serious consequences”, pointing out that if the temporary operator has direct or indirect interests in other Cypriot marinas, “the Larnaca marina’s development will not be of any long-term benefit to them”.

The government had announced in August that the development of Larnaca’s port and marina would be split into two projects. The move comes after the government had in May terminated its agreement with Kition Ocean Holdings, the company it had initially entrusted with a combined project which was set to cost €1.2 billion.

The contract had been terminated after the government had accused Kition of refusing to pay a requisite financial guarantee for the project’s operation and maintenance.

The government had insisted Kition pay a total of €8m, while Kition believed the figure had been agreed at €4.2m.