Following the announcement by the Minister of the Interior (2/12) of the plan for the municipal mergers, we wish to note the following:

1. The relevant proposal of the Ministry of the Interior, as it concerns the Municipality of Geroskipou, is categorically rejected by the Municipal Council and the local community. There is an alternative option that, in our view, is better and more beneficial for the area, namely the merger of the Municipality of Geroskipou with neighbouring communities.

2. The proposed plan was drawn up without any prior consultation with the municipalities and communities concerned and without the necessary consent. The State’s failure to consult local government organisations on matters that directly concern them, such as mergers, constitutes a breach of the European Charter of Local Self-Government (Article 4.6), which the Republic of Cyprus has co-signed and ratified. It should be noted that, to date, the Municipality has sent five letters to the Minister of the Interior, none of which has been answered, in breach of a constitutional provision and of the relevant law requiring the administration to respond within a 30-day deadline.

3. In the Ministry of the Interior’s plan for the mergers, expediency (both political and financial) and the “special requests” of larger municipalities prevailed. The result was the creation of distortions, since robust and viable municipalities were downgraded to “districts”, underperforming municipalities were upgraded, and villages were turned into municipalities! Municipalities were dissolved and new ones created at will, without taking into account the will of the citizens themselves.

4. Some of the merger proposals that were announced were not even examined through the Ministry of the Interior’s relevant study and, consequently, their proposed establishment was not substantiated! By contrast, written and reasoned proposals, such as that of the Municipality of Geroskipou, which was also included among the study’s scenarios, were not taken into account.

5. In all towns, municipalities are being created to the west and east of the towns, with the prospect of further communities being merged in the future. For Paphos, on the contrary, a Municipality of Western Paphos is being created, but not one for Eastern Paphos!

6. Although the Municipality of Geroskipou submitted its final proposal for the mergers on 21 October 2019, correcting erroneous figures in the study that concerned Geroskipou, the Minister of the Interior, in his effort to justify the proposal to merge the Municipalities of Paphos and Geroskipou together with a number of communities, insisted on recycling the same errors, stating that the area of the Municipality of Geroskipou is “under 8 sq. km.” (whereas it is almost 15 sq. km.) and that its population is “barely 5.6% of the residents of Paphos” (whereas it is 9% and, after the Municipality of Paphos, constitutes the largest unit by population)!

7. To justify his proposal on the fate of the Municipality of Geroskipou, the Minister of the Interior stated that “the Town Hall of Geroskipou is only 3.7 km from the Town Hall of Paphos.” Let the Minister tell us what the distance in kilometres will be from the Town Hall of Paphos to the seat of the “Municipality of Western Paphos”, which will be located in Chlorakas, likewise neighbouring the Municipality of Paphos.

8. The Minister of the Interior claims that the merger of the Municipality of Paphos, the Municipality of Geroskipou and a number of communities would produce annual savings of 1.25 million euros. Where did he get this figure, given that his study did not examine such a scenario? On the contrary, regarding the merger of the Municipality of Geroskipou with communities, the Ministry’s own study states that it improves the area’s economies of scale and that the annual savings would be of the order of 1.2 million euros! In other words, the amount of savings is at the same level as that which the Minister claims arises from his own merger proposal!

9. The Minister of the Interior states that, apart from the Municipality of Paphos, the other municipalities in the district have low administrative capacity (which is linked mainly to the number of staff they employ). However, the Ministry’s own study demonstrated that the Municipality of Geroskipou, with regard to the staffing adequacy index which, according to the study, constitutes an important criterion for determining a municipality’s viability, stands at the average level for both clerical staff and workers. It should be noted that for almost ten years there has been a moratorium on hiring, which apparently did not apply to the Municipality of Paphos (e.g. the recruitment of 18 employees during 2020)!

Our question remains unanswered by those responsible for the reform: If the merger of the Municipality of Geroskipou with neighbouring communities meets and safeguards the main objectives set by the study, why should this alternative scenario not be chosen, and why must the Municipality necessarily be absorbed by the Municipality of Paphos? Why should a merger not be chosen that guarantees the most democratic representation of the local authorities being merged within the new administrative structure and its decision-making bodies?

Finally, the Municipality of Geroskipou calls on the Ministry of the Interior, and in particular the new Minister, to reconsider our proposal for the creation of a strong and viable municipality in eastern Paphos.