The Director General of the Ministry of Finance Giorgos Pantelis and the Secretary General of PASYDY Stratis Matthaiou are requesting the unfreezing of the 1.851 vacant positions of the first appointment from the Parliament in their statements to the KYPE.
At the same time, in a letter he sent to the General Director of the Parliament, dated June 1, which is held by the KYPE, Mr. Panteli states that "the request for unfreezing concerns positions that have been budgeted for and taken into account during the budget planning and does not concern a request to create new positions" and emphasizes that "the mentioned positions are deemed necessary for the orderly operation of the public sector and the implementation of government policies/decisions", while requesting that the matter be included as a priority in the agenda of the next session of the Parliamentary Finance Committee.
"Taking into account the approval given by the Parliamentary Finance Committee for the unfreezing of 126 EAC posts, which are included in the said unfreezing package, our position is that the exemption of the remaining 1.725 posts from the ban on filling vacancies is justified, as the positions in question are absolutely necessary for the orderly functioning of both the public and the wider public sector from there and were approved in the context of the state budget and the budgets of public law organizations", adds the DG of the Ministry of Finance.
He notes that all positions have been approved by Parliament either in the state budget or in the budgets of public law organizations for 2023" and "therefore, the necessity of creating new/additional positions as well as abolishing existing positions was evaluated by the Ministry of Finance at the stage of drawing up the respective budgets and before their submission for approval by the Parliament".
In statements to the KYPE, the Director General of the Ministry of Finance said that these positions are not new positions but positions that have been vacated after the retirement of personnel from various government agencies and "the release of all positions must proceed."
He noted that the positions have been reviewed by the Ministry of Finance and prioritized.
Also, Mr. Pantelis said that the Ministry of Finance does not agree with the position for the abolition of the positions and for the gradual release of the positions.
"We ask that all the positions be released together," he added.
He stated that the positions that have been submitted to the Parliament are those "required for the proper staffing of the state services", adding that the largest number of specific positions concern the Police, Fire and Education services, while he spoke of problems that will arise in the operation of the schools from next September with the start of the new school year in case of unfreezing of the positions related to the educational service.
Of the total 1.851 positions, the largest number of them, i.e. 1.011, concern 331 positions in education for the correct and full staffing of all school units in the school year 2023-2024, 278 positions for the Police to cover, among other things, the needs of energy center of Vasilikos, the Reception Center in Menogeia, the Marinas of Larnaca, Limassol, Protaras and Ayia Napa and the detention centers of Morphou and Famagusta, while 219 positions concern the Fire Department to cover the needs of the fire stations of the energy center of Vasilikos, Ayia Napa, Moniatis and Evrychos , the coordination center of Zeno as well as the unified coordination center of Fire Service operations.
Also, 183 concern secretarial staff to meet the needs of the public service.
The remaining 714 positions concern 525 positions to meet the needs of Ministries/Deputy Ministries/Independent Services, 159 positions for the smooth operation of a total of 19 public law organizations and 30 positions for the smooth operation of a total of 13 Local Self-Government Authorities.
The positions are necessary, says the General Secretary of PASYDY
Besides, in statements to the KYPE, the General Secretary of PASYDY Stratis Matthaiou emphasized that "the positions are necessary and that PASYDY's position is that they should be unfrozen immediately".
He added that "any non-freezing of the positions will create problems as a result of which staff are hired for a certain period of time and then they are hired for an indefinite period of time".
"This is something we experienced again with the recruitment freeze that was done with the Troika and we were filled with permanent staff," he added.
He noted that these positions are not new positions but vacant positions.
Also, Mr. Matthaiou said that with the unfreezing of the positions, they are not filled immediately but it takes one to two years until they are filled.
Negative effects of the law to ban the filling of positions
In addition, in the same letter, the Director General of the Ministry of Finance states that the law on the Prohibition of Filling Vacancies in the Public and Wider Public Sector was enacted due to the economic crisis and the extraordinary fiscal conditions that prevailed as a result of it that forced the adoption of measures and notes that "these reasons no longer exist".
"The continuation of the validity of the Law has negative effects such as the increase of non-permanent employees, which is against the policy to cover the needs with permanent staff, the administrative costs for submitting requests from the competent authorities and their evaluation by the Ministry of Finance, the difficulty of planning the procedures for filling positions by the Public Service Commission as well as public law organizations, and by extension the inability of the public and the wider public sector to face the challenges presented and promote reforms", he concludes.
KYPE