Kib-Tek employees’ union El-Sen leader Ahmet Tugcu told Turkish Cypriot news website Kibris Postasi that T&T’s debt to Kib-Tek has reached 92 million TL, and that the usual procedure for customers whose debt to Kib-Tek exceeds 675TL is that their electricity is cut off.

However, he said, Kib-Tek was given “political instructions” to not cut the power supply to the airport by politicians from the UBP and the DP.

He added that he was told by Kib-Tek’s chairman of the board Huseyin Pasha and fellow board member Ali Horoz that they also did not have the power to cut the airport’s power supply, and that he was told, “you cannot cut Ercan’s power supply like you would for ordinary people.”

T&T and the new terminal at Ercan (Tymbou) airport have been a source of controversy since the terminal opened in July last year, with the north’s ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli having threatened the company with daily fines worth $1,000 over “deficiencies” at the terminal in December.

The airport had ground to a halt the previous month after an “electrical problem” at its air traffic control tower, with all air traffic radars, radios, and weather radars at the airport out of action.

Arikli and ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel were both stranded at the airport when the power went out, with Arikli suggesting that “man-made sabotage” may have been the reason the airport ground to a halt.