Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

After 8 years I am for the first time official fed up of this country, why?

Just received electric bill and because we are still on builders electricity it is costing an extra 60tl per month. I shudder to think on how people on minimum wage are going to afford their new bills, normal or any other rate.

The new government have just fallen into the same cess pit as the last one by not tackling the major issue of Kib Tek debt, that clearly identified by the unions of corporate debtors such as large hotels, Cratos is one of the named ones, plus the debt of government departments. We all know the reasons why politicians will not tackle this problem so they just pass it on to Joe Public to pay.

Seriously thinking of selling up.

Join the club , this country has gone so corrupt it is unreal.

Yes ours was extra 50 lira more than it has ever been!

Government robs everybody ! Hate them!

cyprusishome wrote:After 8 years I am for the first time official fed up of this country, why?

Just received electric bill and because we are still on builders electricity it is costing an extra 60tl per month. I shudder to think on how people on minimum wage are going to afford their new bills, normal or any other rate.

The new government have just fallen into the same cess pit as the last one by not tackling the major issue of Kib Tek debt, that clearly identified by the unions of corporate debtors such as large hotels, Cratos is one of the named ones, plus the debt of government departments. We all know the reasons why politicians will not tackle this problem so they just pass it on to Joe Public to pay.

Seriously thinking of selling up.

Never thought I would hear that from you David, shows how bad things have become.

Also to mention how people here can afford to pay rent and these kind of bills when they are getting salary in lira and and half is paid in sterling aswell. Then you got the markets that have got abit expensive aswell.
Why is accommodation paid in sterling and nearly simular to what they paying in the south.
Money has finished really when people do get paid.
In the newspapers there is riots about the electric now with the locals.

I do feel for the local people who are paid in TL and therefore do not have the advantages of most expats who deal in Sterling through their banks and benifit from the high exchange rates. For the local people this latest price hike from KibTek is a shame to be sure.

But.

Can we not get this in perspective for non-local people please?

My old age pension gives me £464.00 per four week month - no pay rises, no heating allowance and I am looking forward to the monster £10.00 Christmas bonus. Three months ago my electricity bill was 200TL (as it should be this month before the price rise) and the exchange rate for my old age pension was £1.00 = 2.92TL - that gave me a total of 1,354.00TL.

This month my old age pension will be £464.00 and the exchange rate is £1.00 = 3.28TL - that gives me a total of 1,522.00TL, OR a pay rise of 168TL. Everyone on the old age pension is the same by the way but the amount they get every month will differ.

However, I have a nice pay rise of 168TL but my electric will probably go up by around 45TL which means my overall pay rise will only be 123TL instead.

I see no reason at all to pack up, sell up and run off back where I came from because I have a smaller pay RISE!!!

Can anyone explain to me why I should? In particular as fuel bills in the UK have just gone up as well.

I think you make a very point and please also take into consideration that unlike the Uk prices in the TRNC have not increased over the past two years and what about the winter allowance to those who qualify?

Life over here is not that bad after all-perhaps!

Art, But then we came here to live out our lives and retire in peace, so whatever happens in the UK can happen there - it is no longer where we live. We live here and so the prices, the rises, the exchange rate changes and all the rest of the "Living Here" things are important to us - but we never expected things here to stay as they were when first came and as we all know - very, very few things in the world actually go down in price.

Happy to be here but still feel for the local people who have to carry the burden of poor management at the top.

I would still like my street lights to work mind you - ah well, one day..............

Phil,
It is the accumulation of things, this price rise the level of which is unnecessary, has really peed me off. It is not money that is the issue, as art says life here is still quite good but after being dropped in it by a developer and scammed by a builder, cannot do anything because the barstewards never paid for a building permit, which the solicitor never picked up on, 8 years on builders electric with little chance of changing because bureaucrats rule OK!!!!

The mind and body will only take so much and today they are both finished.

There is in place a democratic system of government, the locals voted them in, not us. Yes I know it is a simplistic way of looking at things but it is a point that if there was or had been a groundswell of public opinion it could be changed.

However is the price increase as a result of non payment my certain companies or groups or does it reflect the increase in the price of oil or inefficiencies within Kibtek itself? I was driving to Ercan this morning at the time the street lights went off, realistically they could have been off half an hour earlier and perhaps on half an hour later, to be honest do we really need them all over the place all night or even at all?

More resources should be put into solar energy, I for one would be happy to have a feed back to the grid system, if they can make it work in the UK why not here.

Just a few thoughts.

Can you please tell me the new rate for builder's electric. Thanks.

New rate is 1.120678 plus KDV

Jonnie,
I do not think it matters which parties are in power, from what I have seen they all appear to be in parliament for the same reasons!!
Yes, there is an element of increased fuel costs but the debts owed to Kib Tek stretch back over years and I believe if all those debts had been paid then only a small increase would have been required.
As for street lights, in the UK the authorities are switching off many lights to try to save money so why not here, at least 50% of lights on dual carriageways could be switched off with no detriment.

cyprusishome, chin up, smile, and don't let it get to you, I can understand how you feel, and things have risen here at such rate especially electric, that was already expensive 10 years ago, you and your lovely wife can get through this, as you have with all the other challenges, life here is definitely better then the UK where we are made to feel the foreigners, hope to see you both soon xxx

Thank you CIS.

Thanks Barb, I agree electric has never been cheap here but we knew that before we came, money per se is not the issue.
As for the lovely wife thing, you must be mixing me up with someone else!!!!!! lol

CIS, Understand your comment fully, sad for you but wish you both the very best of luck. Once you reach the point where the fight has gone out of you in one direction, it is time to head in another direction or you will only hurt more and more, so I do understand that it is not soley the electric that is the issue.

As for the Government here - it is the same in every country in the world, show me just one "POOR" retired MP and I will change my mind. I think the majority of people who go into politics do so with a will to help but rapidly chose a different path and change agenda's to suit.

Street lights!!!!!! 5 months without our lights working now, phone calls to have it fixed every week, visits to KibTek twice a month, they say they don't know where I live - I said if I don't pay my bill will you cut me off and remove my meter, YES I was told - I asked how they would do that if they don't know where I live - small smile was the reply......... Keep the dual carriageway lights on please, it is the only chance we have of spotting people driving down them the wrong way - lol.

Take care out there.

No Cyprus is home I am not mixing you with someone else, hope to see you both Saturday with a lovely smile on your faces xxx

The good news is that the government has added 1% to the wages of government workers to cover the extra cost , plus the 13th month bonus you could n't make it up

I just don't know how the locals can afford to survive with the increased electricity cost and the devaluation of the lire.

Everything is going up and frankly the minimum wage is a pittance.

Can see lots of protests and disruption coming soon.

Suggest you give the generator a good service.

When the big hotels don't pay electrick the electrick company's increase electrick for everybody.
Everybody is paying expensive and still the hotels are not paying!
And yet when the electrick is cut off and works are being done, we still have to pay the electrick including the extra increase!!
They take outside lighting money every month but lots of areas including where I live has none working even though there are lamps out there.
So they robbing us, so in a way we are the ones paying for the hotels debts for example.
Because they are not paying like cratos, Lapitos etc.

After the increase the government pay their workers and new workers, where is a salary increase for private sector workers?

Electrick gone up, fuel, markets, gas, sterling, doller, euro ,
Private sectors and locals just eat bread & water !!

One thing that doesnt change is "The Rich get Rich and the Poor get Poorer" and in the meantime such of us dont have much fun!

It not just income. For permanent residents who dont have access to theUK health services, t loss of value of capital, saved for health care and comfort in their old age very serious . Ten yearsago possible to live simply and continue saving. Now the rises in many areas, partly caused by the better off of incomers demanding more luxury goods, are depleting that i capital as the income from it goes down. Of course this is not the fault of the TRNC - it is worldwide bankers who are lauging all the way to the ..........well Bank I suppose .... at the expense of the poor and elderly and sick, who most suffer from extrmes of climate.

Quite a few will agree with Cyprus is Home that this latest electricity increase (and make no mistake the price of gas, firewood etc. will also go up) is getting close to being the last straw, as again it is the fat cats who are benefitting from not paying their bills . I dont agree they should cut down on street lighting, with the level of road accidents, but the fact that a lot of electricity is wasted on fancy signs etc. does make the blood boil.

I dont think many locals are going hungry - they know how to chose and cook good food cheaply , but they may well get very cold and those in poor health in all communities will suffer if we have a repeat of last years strikes. It is the workmen from "undeveloped" countries who I recently discovered are actuallyy living on bread and water to send money to their families. No surprise they are tempted to crime as they see how the other half live!



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ChypruIsHome, please don't give up. I'll let you into a secret (don't worry no-one else read Kibkom!!!) so it's just between the two of us. Over the years on various Forums, whenever I've said anything vagually derogatory about life in the TRNC, you've been out there battling away, telling me and others like me that "life here is good, where else could you......" and then there was a list of "good" things. I haven't always agreed with your views, but at least there have been time when I've given it some thought. The main reason being that we have nowhere else to go, we don't have another place in UK or elsewhere in Europe, and we can't put our property on the market in any case because we have discovered that a chunk of our land is on some elses elses (TC) So we're on a hiding to nothing. My point being, we're stuck here regardless of cost of living, corruption, liars, etc. So it's people like you CIH and people like us, that have to stick it out, and think of the positives (and there are some, although they do appear to be getting fewer at times) On the news this morning everyone agreed that there will be a reduction in retail fuel prices because of Iran and one other country coming back on stream. If the wind is in the right direction and January has an "e" in it, we might also have a petrol reduction. So lets think positively. OK? Don't tell anyone though.

Between you and I sophie, I do not always agree with you but at least we can do so within sensible parameters. It is like a rugby match, you knock the c**p out of each other for 80 minutes then go to the bar for a few pints!!!

I do not know what I expected when starting this thread but I wish those in power would read through it. Most of us foreigners from Western Europe love the place far more than many others and we can see what has happened over the last 8 years in my case. I just wish the TC's in charge would take the blinkers off and listen we have a lot of experience and knowledge to offer. It is no good just increasing the cost of electricity to the end user you must do several other things at the same time,