Cyprus Mail 16 June 2020 - by Bejay Browne
The mayor of Paphos said on Tuesday his accusations of ‘black market’ prices and profiteering by some private clinics undertaking coronavirus testing have been vindicated after the ministry of health’s latest round of tests will cost €50.
The ministry is offering tests for only €50 when the previous ceiling was €110. These tests will be carried out by the same company that was previously charging €85, Phedonas said.
In April the mayor hit out at private companies carrying out coronavirus tests.
Phedonas said based on his own findings the cost of such tests should be around €50.
His comments, denouncing the behaviour of some private testing laboratories and urging the government to issue a price cap for private tests have now been fully justified, he said.
“From the first days of the pandemic, I publicly denounced the profiteering of private laboratories that performed coronavirus tests, even describing the charges as ‘black market’. For this statement , the content of which, as it turns out, was true, I have been personally sued for alleged defamation and / or libel and / or harmful forgery,” he added.
Phedonas said a well-documented cost analysis and the calculation of a reasonable profit, a reasonable charge per test could not exceed €52 and emphasised that prices of €150-170 initially, which dropped to €110 were unacceptable, taking advantage of the situation to make a profit.
The mayor informed both the ministry of health and the auditor general, he said.
Last Friday the ministry of health awarded the company that sued the mayor a contract to carry out 10,000 tests for only €50 each, while previously it had made an offer of €85.
“It is now self-evident that my repeated and timely complaints were not only well-founded but also absolutely necessary, as both the state and the citizen fell victim to the unbridled greed of businessmen, who were obviously pocketing many millions,” Phedonas said.
The municipality of Paphos refused to pay the amount requested by the private laboratory, which performed 704 tests in early April, because it never agreed directly and / or contracted in any way to this private laboratory, he said.
“Also, the refusal to pay any amount for the tests was and is imperative, given that the issue was investigated by the audit office,” he said.
