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Massive demo planned against electricity prices
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THE PUBLIC’S frustration over high electricity prices has sparked two new Facebook groups ‘One Voice – Facebook Group Against the Electricity Authority Cyprus’ and ‘End Unfair Electricity of Cyprus Monopoly.’
To get the ball rolling, ‘One Voice’ have already organised a protest in collaboration with the second group on February 29, from 12.30 to 3.30pm outside all the main EAC offices islandwide.
“We’re aiming for about 10,000 people in total,” said one of the group founders, who preferred not to be named.
He also said that ‘One Voice’ administrators only recently discovered the existence of the second group that was set up at around the same time as theirs, just over two weeks ago.
Through the protest the group aims at getting the message across that the people should not be paying for ‘the mistakes of others’ as well as trying to get rid of the 6.96 per cent surcharge placed on the price of electricity due to the July 11 naval base blast at Mari.
Eurostat just last week revealed that in 2011 consumers in Cyprus were charged with an average electricity price of €0.1731 per kilowatt-hours (€/kWh) – the highest in the EU – and this was before the 6.96 per cent levy.
What initially began as something to simply make a point has quickly gained over 2,000 followers with people posting their complaints daily. The second group have over 4,000 followers.
“We hear lots of stories of not having solar panels?” said the representative for One Voice, adding that the EAC’s investments were being put in the wrong place. “They should be setting their sights on promoting more renewable energy sources,” he said.
“Someone just posted on the group that they got a bill of €1,493 and the other day a lady in our office said she got one for €600 and she doesn’t even use the dryer or dishwasher anymore.”
It appears that in a very short period of time the group has been embraced by both Cypriots and foreigners. It started off with around 300 members, who were mainly foreigners, but it was mentioned in various newspapers and radio stations, causing its Cypriot membership to quickly peak.
Both groups also have an online petition against the high price of power that can be found on both pages and has already garnered over 1,000 signatures.
Join ‘One Voice’ at https://www.facebook.com/groups/oncevoiceagainsteac/ and ‘End Unfair Electricity of Cyprus Monopoly’ at https://www.facebook.com/groups/endeacmonopoly.
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