It is now certain that the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy and the New Democracy government have consciously chosen to completely undermine the Transport Equivalency.
Outstanding payments to island residents are now approaching one year, since the latter were valid through September 2021! At the same time, as far as businesses are concerned, the platform for submitting applications for the first half of 2022 has not even opened yet.
Mr. Plakiotakis’s assurance in late June that payments would begin in July—citing, hypocritically, «technical problems» to justify the unprecedented delays, proved once again to be empty. Even if, for a change, the latest promise to begin payments on August 20 is fulfilled, it will apply only to the last quarter of 2021.
It is obvious that, at this rate and given the ever-increasing delays in payments to beneficiaries—that is, the very core of the Transportation Equivalent— the Ministry is undermining the very central objective of the measure and running counter to its underlying philosophy.
As we have said before, the islanders themselves, who recognized the importance of the Transport Equivalent, will not allow it to be devalued.
