Pleasure boat dock operators’ refusal to pay annual management fees in full to the government upon receipt of planning permission is costing the government money, the audit office warned in its latest report on Wednesday.

The audit office examined the cases of six pleasure boat docks, for which planning permission was granted between June 2018 and January 2019, and found that fees have not been paid in full, or even not at all.

According to the report, the six docks were in the Larnaca district village of Alaminos, the Paphos district village of Peyia, at the mouth of the Ha Potami river near the Paphos district village of Kouklia, near the Pachyammos beach in Kato Paphos, and two in the Larnaca district village of Softades.

It said that annual management fees range between €75,000 and €262,000.

The Alaminos dock’s operators, it said, paid the fees in full between 2018 and 2020 but not since, while the operators of the docks in Peyia and Ha Potami, as well as of one of the Softades docks, have paid nothing at all.

Meanwhile, the operators of the Pachyammos dock and of the other Softades dock have paid the requisite fees, with the former having paid the fees backdated in October last year, and the latter having paid an advance lump sum in December 2020.

The report said that some of the operators had argued that being asked to pay annual management fees upon receipt of planning permission, rather than upon the dock’s entry into service, is “particularly burdensome”.

Given this to be the case, the finance ministry had in 2019 requested an opinion from the legal service, which found in 2021 that the government can only begin demanding fees “after the issuance of all the required individual licences”.

It also called on the government to “comply with the principles of good faith and proportionality” to ensure that it “does not act in a contradictory manner or in bad faith”.

Later, a committee created to evaluate the matter proposed that the bill regarding the operation of pleasure boat docks be amended to establish a different, reduced interim fee for dock operators.

This, it said, would ensure that the government receives some payment before the docks enter service, while also not subjecting dock operators to fees they cannot pay.

However, the audit office said that such an amendment has never been brought to a parliamentary vote, leaving the legal status quo unchanged.

This, it said, has seen the government incur a loss of revenue, as dock operators are still not paying management fees for docks which do not exist and no replacement fee has been created.

As such, the audit office called for the tourism deputy ministry to put forward legislative amendments to introduce a new fee for would-be dock operators.

It also called on the government to allow cabinet to revoke dock operators’ permits in cases where operators “unreasonably” delay the payment of fees.