Filenews 17 November 2023 - by Frixos Dalitis
The reform of Local Government was and still is a big bet for the Republic of Cyprus and an issue with which the Government and Parliament "struggled" for several years. Studies were carried out by experts from Britain, Italy and elsewhere and specific recommendations were submitted to the state and the Union of Municipalities. But you don't get bored. You can't find more experts than our parties and politicians anywhere... Because at the end of the day, we may be celebrating the achievement of finally voting for the reform of Local Government, which for Cyprus is certainly a historic event and a point of reference, but at the same time, when we stand in front of the mirror, we should all reflect on where we started and where we ended up on the issue of Local Government.
According to our information, at first sight it seems that the budget for Local Government this year is 30% higher than in previous years. It is recalled that the main objective of the reform of local government was and is to save resources... One this prisoner.
Secondly and even more provocative is the amount that will be paid in salaries of mayors, deputy mayors and presidents of provincial councils. The debate on what would ultimately be the number of new municipalities was particularly difficult because it had to satisfy the wishes of each local ruler and at the same time not harm party interests. As a result, we have finally carried out a reform with twenty municipalities and consider that we have significantly reduced their number. For the final number of municipalities, it is well known that the element of party balance played a decisive role. Simply put, even the municipalities were coloured and divided in the logic of who has the majority in each area.
The even more paradoxical thing of the whole story, however, which also demonstrates the way in which the political forces worked, is that together with the twenty mayors we will now have a deputy mayor for each municipal district, because in their wisdom our political rulers considered that they should maintain a deputy mayor for each municipal district and not a deputy mayor for each new municipality. However, this means that each community that joined a municipality will now have its own deputy mayor. In other words, from the mukhtars, we go to the deputy mayors, in order to give an extra prestige to the new positions of local power that we have created. As a result, we have 93 deputy mayors. Obviously, however, this was how the numbers came out to some, and the numbers in the distribution of the serpents came out better. Unfortunately, this is the reality, even if the parties put forward various excuses.
According to data submitted to Parliament by the Government last May, the Republic of Cyprus will pay more than €6 millionper year in salaries of Mayors, Deputy Mayors and Municipal Councillors.
The remuneration of mayors in large municipalities will be approximately equal to the remuneration of MPs. For deputy mayors this depends on the population of their municipal district, but it is by no means a negligible amount. When, for example, in the case of a community of more than two thousand, which will now have a deputy mayor with an annual salary of about €24,000 a year, we are talking about a regular salary, without actually having any real work to be performed by the deputy mayor. Not to mention the cases of deputy mayors of large municipalities whose annual salary together with the representation allowance will be close to €40,000.
Coming to the point, we are once again trapped in decisions of party interests. Even the parties themselves, of course, are faced with their own decisions. Because they created a Local Government that functions for many as a pole of attraction for the satisfaction of personal ambitions accompanied by financial gain. Such attitudes, of course, have always existed. With the reform and the new circumstances that are being created, these have intensified.
The result is that the crux of the matter is once again lost. Instead of discussing how to implement the reform of Local Government to serve him and how to develop mechanisms to solve the problems that will arise, our concern is who will become Mayor and Deputy Mayor...
