Filenews 11 May 2023
With their mouths open, the community leaders of small communities who find that their salaries will be upgraded to the salary of a deputy mayor, when their communities are incorporated into the new schemes created in the framework of the reform of Local Government.
The reversal comes with an promoted provision, according to which the remuneration of the community leaders will be equal to a percentage of the salary of the Mayor, depending on the voters of the community from which they come. The community leaders of the smallest of the 63 communities joining the new schemes are most affected. Specifically, the remuneration of the current community leaders is determined as follows:
For communities with up to 500 voters, 20% of the Mayor's salary will be paid, from 500 to 1,000 voters 30% and beyond 1,000 voters 50% of the Mayor's salary. As far as the remuneration of the Mayors of large Municipalities is concerned, it will be equal to the remuneration of the MP, plus representation expenses that raise the total salary to around €6,000 per month.
More specifically, Mayors in Municipalities up to 3,000 voters receive 60% of the MP's salary, between 3,000-5,000 voters will receive 70%, between 5,000-20,000 will receive 80% and over 20,000 voters will receive 100% of the MP's salary.
As far as the occupied municipalities are concerned, the Mayors of Famagusta, Kyrenia and Morphou will receive a salary equal to 60% of the remuneration received by MPs, while the rest will receive 40%. The deputy mayors of the occupied municipalities will receive a salary equal to 15% of the Mayor's salary. Especially for the occupied Municipalities, the provision for the number of municipal councillors is maintained, with a minimum number of 8 and a maximum of 26.
Regarding "how many times" someone is entitled to be elected and when they are excluded, in the context of dealing with incompatibility, a provision was included according to which, whoever was elected three times (excluding the current term) in the 2024 elections would not be eligible to stand as a candidate.
But many community leaders had even served more than three terms, so they were excluded from the next election.
Thus, based on the new regulation that is being promoted for voting, in the upcoming elections, everyone is entitled to be candidates (regardless of previous terms) and the limitation of three terms will apply from the year 2029, when then, anyone found to have served three terms in the past is excluded. This concerns both mayors and community leaders as well as municipal and community councillors. The above regulation was also a request of the Union of Communities.
In an announcement yesterday, the Ministry of Interior announced that the Council of Ministers approved amending bills, which mainly concern provisions related to the conduct of elections for Local Government Authorities.
The same announcement states that the Ministry is currently preparing three additional amending bills that will regulate individual, technical issues and which are expected to be submitted to the Council of Ministers around July this year. The person responsible for the reform at the Ministry of Interior, Mr. Antonis Economides, told "F" that the promoted regulations aim at the smoother implementation of the reform while complying with the recommendations of the Auditor General.
