The file of refugees, in which the owners of occupied properties are recorded and the assistance they have received from the state according to the data collected by the competent services, is ready and the Central Equal Burden Distribution Agency will prepare a study by the end of the year for the ways in which landlords can be supported by the state, as MPs said after the meeting of the Parliamentary Refugee Committee.
In statements after the meeting, the Chairman of the Committee for Refugees, Koutra Koukouma, stated that we have been informed that the register has been completed and has been handed over to the President of the Republic and the competent Ministers.
The goal, Ms. Koukouma added, "was not simply to record the occupied properties but respectively the aid they have received either through housing or business plans and other means."
"This is a time when if there is a political will on the part of the government to support the owners of occupied property, they can make the decisions," he said. For us, he added, "it is important to make decisions to support the owners of occupied property, but on the other hand the housing support plans for refugees must continue.
The purpose of creating the refugee archive, he clarified, had to do with the intention to support the owners of occupied properties through a loss loss allowance, as promised by the President of the Republic during and before the election period.
Ms. Koukouma also said that during the session some scenarios were heard about the ways through which the support formula of the owners of occupied properties could be found. "It seems that the services still want to study and plan further, but for us it is important that if they want they can," he said.
She expressed her concern because there is no corresponding budget line.
He also expressed concern about the fact that 1,83% of disputed assets continue to remain. Of this, 1,15% concerns properties in Famagusta and 0,68% properties in Kyrenia. At the same time, 19,81% of the assets have not been declared, something that needs to be addressed, he said.
We are concerned that today, in addition to the "real estate committee" appealed to owners of occupied property, other procedures are used today, either the sale of property to investors with transactions through the Land Registry or which remain as purchase documents, but also the fact that acts are carried out in the so-called land registers of the occupied.
According to her, "the state should take measures so far, to support the owners of occupied property not to use these methods, that is, to sell in most cases at degrading prices their occupied property that you understand the consequences in future and the resolution of the Cyprus problem ".
For her part, DISY MP Mariella Aristeidou said that the refugee file "has been completed and will be an important tool for the state, so that we can implement a rational distribution of refugee policy."
At the moment, said Ms. Aristeidou, "we are waiting for the study until the end of the year that is done by the Agency to have a complete picture of what needs to be applied for the loss of use."
It is not an easy task, he said, but added that "there is political will and this is proven by the fact that this Government came after 45 years to correct injustices."
"We must now see in practice how we will implement a policy that should have already been implemented," the DISY MP noted.
This is the statement of Koukouma Utensils
"We discussed today in the Parliamentary Committee for Refugees the issue of the Refugee Archive. Through the Register there is the possibility to match the properties that each family had in the occupied areas together with the help they received from the various refugee plans.
According to what has been reported at the meeting, the Equal Burden Distribution Agency has proceeded with a specific formula for processing the data of the Refugee Archive in order to design various scenarios of support for the owners of occupied properties. The next will be the political will of the Government, since there is not even the formal provision in the 2020 Budget for the operation of such a plan.
In our view, the Refugee Archive should be used to support the owners of occupied property, but not to completely and completely link the entire refugee policy with the size of the occupied property.
The meeting also addressed the issues of disputed occupied properties that correspond to 0,68% of the real estate of the Province of Kyrenia and 1,15% of the occupied real estate of the Province of Famagusta while at the same time 19,8% of the occupied properties remain undeclared.
As AKEL, we believe that the Government should move quickly on the issue of supporting the owners of occupied properties since, as mentioned by the Land Registry, there are cases of sale of occupied properties which are not submitted to the Department of Lands and Surveying while in some other cases "Of the occupied so that there is no way to know the number of occupied properties that have been sold."