Pressured House energy committee to discuss Vasiliko fracas

State authorities will be hard pressed on Tuesday at an extraordinary meeting convened by the House energy committee, to discuss the Vasiliko LNG project fiasco, among other hot topics.

Energy Minister George Papanastasiou is to attend, as well auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides, the permanent secretaries of the foreign and finance ministries, representatives of the attorney-general’s office, and the heads of the natural gas infrastructure company (Etyfa) and Defa (natural gas public company).

A request to hold the session behind closed doors was partially accepted, and the discussions on LNG will not be open to the press.

The energy minister and agency heads are expected to be grilled on the latest developments in Cyprus’ troubled energy investments and how the state intends to forge ahead, following the European public prosecutor office’s (EPPO’s) announcement of the launch of an investigationfor possible criminal actsand the EU’s demand for LNG project funds to be returned.

MPs are expected to raise a slew of questions, spanning the award procedures which initially put the project in the hands of the Chinese, Greek and Norwegian consortium, despite warnings of its incompetence; the decision to pay out an additional €25 million for an already over-extended project, and who may be held responsible and how far mistakes, omissions and violations of legislation were committed throughout the saga.

Some MPs have gone so far as to suggest that the LNG project is well on the path to becoming a dud, and that the possibility of scrapping it all together ought to be costed, in favour of a different tact, such as intense investment in storage for solar energy.

Members of the committee will also be informed by the state officials about the progress on the Cyprus-Greece-Israel electrical interconnector, dubbed the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI).

The GSI is currently in limbo until August, when the state energy regulatory authority (Cera) is expected to answer to a renewed proposal by the Greek independent power transmission operator (Admie)over how to cover a gap in funding through tariffs imposed on consumers.

Energy committee Chairman Kyriacos Hadjiyiannis had claimed that Admie’s cost-benefit analysis lacks hard evidence and that undue pressure had been placed on Cera to accept is.

MPs are also expected to bring up problems faced broadly across sectors by companies and legal entities after decisions made by the department of registrar and intellectual property on submission of UBO (ultimate beneficial ownership) details, as well as other issues.