Six generators are now functioning again at the Teknecik power plant, General Manager of Kib-Tek Dalman Aydın said, Yeniduzen reports.
Last night, teams of electricians from private energy company AKSA were called in to attend to six generators which required maintenance work, having received none since Cyprus Turkish Electricity Authority Employees Union (El-Sen) called a strike 16 days ago.
El-Sen is protesting against the amendment to the Public Procurement Bill which enables the government to purchase fuel and electricity supply without going to tender. Essentially, the amendment will permit the government to extend its existing contract with AKSA for another 15 years.
El-Sen has said that this will only increase the cost of electricity and limit the country’s future green energy options.
Despite the government banning the strike, the union went ahead in an act of ‘civil disobedience’. The strike is permitted with the proviso that military units and hospitals can call on Kib-Tek electricians in the event of electrical malfunctions. Reportedly, the union had not met this condition.
Dalman Aydın stated that, as a result of the interventions by AKSA teams to re-commission defective generators that require maintenance, the number of operating generators was increased from 2 to 6, while production increased from 30 megawatts to 90 megawatts.
MP Condemns Government Action
In an article published by Kibris Postasi it was reported that Chairperson of the Communal Democracy Party (TDP) Mine Atlı, in a written statement said, “Kıb-Tek and its power plants are public property, they are the institution of society. It’s called demolishing public property by the hand of the state“.
Arguing that a serious crime is currently being committed at Teknecik, that a private company has been protected by the state’s police, and that it is a major “scandal and disgrace“, Atlı said that the government had not sat down with the union to discuss the bill, and had not withdrawn the contentious amendment. She described the act of the government as the “law of the jungle“.
This is a repeat of the accusation by El-Sen and others that running down state energy authority Kib-Tek was a deliberate act in order to sell off a state-owned asset.
