Filenews 30 January 2021 - by Vasos Vassiliou
The mayors of the major municipalities to be created as part of the local government reform will receive an MP's salary, while the mayors of the smaller municipalities will receive 70%-80% of the MP's salary, as appropriate.
It is noted that the MP's gross salary (including around €1,000 for secretarial services) is €6,500 and the "net" is around €4,500.
Municipalities whose mayors will receive the same salary as deputies include the Municipalities of Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos, as well as municipalities whose voters exceed 20,000. Today, the mayors of the four old municipalities, as well as the municipality of Strovolos, receive a similar salary.
For the other municipalities (free areas) the following apply:
(a) In municipalities whose electors do not exceed 3 000, 60% of the Member's salary shall be paid, (b) In municipalities whose electors exceed 3 000; but do not exceed 5,000: 70%, (c) In municipalities whose voters exceed 5,000, but do not exceed 20,000: 80%, (e) In the occupied municipalities of Famagusta, Kyrenia and Morfos: 60% (f) In the remaining occupied municipalities : 40%.
The bill being promoted provides that "the mayor and the deputy mayor may receive such annual remuneration, representation expenses and other allowances and the consultants may receive such compensation, representation expenses and other allowances, as provided for in the budget of the municipality adopted each year by the Minister (Interior) with the agreement of the Minister of Finance, in accordance with the provisions of the law'.
Especially for deputy mayors, it is provided that their remuneration amounts to 50% of the mayor's remuneration and each councillor receives compensation amounting to 10% of the mayor's remuneration.
It is understood that under the provisions of the bill, the mayors of rich municipalities (mainly tourist) where there is the possibility of paying high remuneration to mayors, will be paid less due to the limited number of their electors.
According to the provisions of the bill being promoted, depending on the size of each municipality, candidate mayors will be able to spend up to €30,000 on their election campaign, which favours the "haves" as well as candidates supported by parties.
In more detail, with regard to the election expenses of candidate mayors and municipal councillors, the bill provides that: (a) Candidate councillors €3,000, (b) Candidate deputy mayors €3,000, (c) Candidate mayors, depending on the number of electors of the municipality concerned, as follows: For municipalities whose number of electors is up to 15,000, candidate mayors will be able to spend up to €10,000. For municipalities whose number of voters ranges between 15,001 – 30,000 they will be entitled to spend up to €20,000. For municipalities with a voter number of 30,001 or more they will be able to spend up to €30,000.
Reminder - Tala is a community not a municipality
