Dismissing workers after marina tender collapse necessary, says minister

Dismissing 15 employees from Kition Ocean Holdings was necessary, Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades said on Friday, adding that efforts were made to find suitable positions for these individuals at the newly established Larnaca-Famagusta District Development Company (Anetel).

The employees had been promised similar jobs after the collapse of the Larnaca Marina tender with Kition Ocean Holdings. However, for 15 out of the 87 employees, the transport ministry was unable to find roles within Anetel.

“We tried to find work for all the employees,” Vafeades told CyBC in the morning. He revealed that some of the 15 dismissed employees were earning high wages, with one reportedly earning €11,000 per month.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, the former employees expressed their dismay at the situation. Vafeades clarified that termination letters were issued because there were no available jobs that matched the roles these individuals previously held.

He added that the Larnaca municipality, which had taken over some of the projects Kition was planning, indicated they might hire personnel from the former project manager’s team.

Vafeades explained that after the transition period, it became clear that no suitable positions were available for some of the workers. “When we decided to employ all the workers, we held a meeting at the port and informed them that they would be employed during the transition period. We made it clear that roles would be identified based on their previous positions, as our goal was to keep them in the same jobs.

However, we also emphasised that if a role did not exist, or if the employee was hired specifically by Kition for tasks that were no longer relevant, we would not be able to retain them,” he said.

He also gave examples such as former Kition employees who were hired for construction projects that the company had been designing, which rendered their roles irrelevant.

“Along the way, when we looked at who was being employed, we found, for example that one person was not even reporting to work. Some employees were not actually working at the port and marina but were involved in other activities at Kition, such as construction, and for three months, they had nothing to do,” Vafeades noted.

He also mentioned the case of an employee earning €11,000 per month who had no job responsibilities, and he referred to the dismissal of the director hired by Kition for the port, a position that has since been filled by the Cyprus Ports Authority.

He added that there were also cases of people employed for other positions at Kition, who took on other roles at Anetel, after the ministry found them roles that they could take on.

Vafeades added that some of the 15 dismissed employees were offered alternative positions but were unsure about accepting them, prompting the ministry to fill these roles with other candidates. The minister made it clear that the state had exhausted all possibilities to retain jobs, citing examples such as placing harbour workers at the marina to avoid job losses.