By Giannis Karousos *
Local government reform is necessary and no one can disagree with it. However, the reform promoted by the Ministry of Interior has wrong criteria in the issue of mergers, since important criteria such as the active population, tourism, finances and other peculiarities of the Municipalities are not taken into account.
Ayia Napa is a Municipality that has a special importance for the Cypriot economy, as it is the "pillar" of tourism for Cyprus as it hosts about 30% of the tourist nights in Cyprus and in difficult times for the place, supported thousands of jobs and brought huge revenues to the country, along with other tourist Municipalities of the island. It is the leading tourist brand of Cyprus, known throughout the world. A brand that today is in danger of extinction due to mergers.
Reports and information published by the media show that the effort of the Ministry of Interior is to promote the mandatory unification of Municipalities at all costs, with the sole criterion being the population, ignoring all other factors and criteria set by experts who conducted studies on the reform of Local Government.
Indicatively, I mention that the Municipality of Ayia Napa is one of the most robust and economically active municipalities of Cyprus with annual revenues of about 18m and a surplus of 3m euros in 2018, has a staff of 280 people, 16,000 tons of waste, with 2,5m. annual cubic meters of water supply, 1,9cm cubic flow in the sewer and has 30,000 tourist beds, figures that prove that the project of the Municipality of Ayia Napa concerns 60,000 active population, and not the 3,200 permanent residents.
Already, the Municipality itself undertakes and pays expenses that should be borne by the state (such as about 700,000 euros per year for the lifeguard service) but is now a contracting authority for urban projects. At the same time it receives one of the lowest state sponsorships, as 27th out of 30 Municipalities of the order of 840,000 per year. All this proves that even today Ayia Napa can function without the slightest state sponsorship.
And yet, the government seems to be planning the amalgamation of Municipalities with the primary criterion of permanent residents ignoring the active population and Tourism. How else can it be explained that the government ignores the reports of experts and technocrats and plans to merge the Municipality of Paralimni with the Municipality of Ayia Napa, which mathematically leads to the absorption and disappearance of Ayia Napa?
Based on the population, in the Municipal Council that will be created, Ayia Napa will have only 17% representation and 83% Paralimni (while it will contribute approximately equally to the budget with about 18cm each Municipality), ie the decisions for the tourist strategy, The Strategy and development of Ayia Napa will be received by others, who today are in fact competitors (in the good sense) with the tourist product of our Municipality.
This is a healthy competition between the two Municipalities today that has benefited the entire economy of Cyprus, as these two destinations managed to host up to 50% of the tourist overnight stays in Cyprus.
There is no technocratic argument for the benefits that will have the merger of 2 healthy Municipalities, giants in tourism, and which today are sustainable, surplus, with minimal state sponsorship and which have the 6th and 7th highest budget in Cyprus. Also, if one takes into account tourism, we get away from the critical population masses that are required.
Who would have thought that there are thoughts to punish Ayia Napa by the government because it is a surplus Municipality and has developed such a large tourism product, let alone a government that wants to claim that it is in favor of economic freedom and pays attention to technocrats.
I wonder if we will ever in Cyprus ever reward the right and the best examples, instead of constantly rescuing the bad payers and the mismanagement? With our mentality we send the wrong message to everyone, since those who make irregularities or do not make transparent decisions in the end are rewarded in various ways (such as writing off the water supply debts of the communities without any compensation to the good payers, writing off the debts Municipalities, tax amnesty and many other decisions).
In the planned reform of the Local Government, Ayia Napa must and deserves to remain an independent Municipality as it belongs to the healthiest Municipalities of Cyprus according to all economic and technical criteria. Our Municipality is in favor of the reform that will give more independence to the Municipalities, will give more responsibilities to the local bodies, will strengthen the aggregation of services between Municipalities and communities and will generally transfer the service of citizens and businesses closer to the local Authority and not to central state. For all these reasons, we will fight for the reform of the Local Government as it should, with the right criteria to have substantial benefits for the place.
* Mayor of Ayia Napa