With the aim of a correct and smooth transition to the new operating framework of the Local Self-Government as will result from the reform that has been passed, the training program for the elected officials and the staff of the Local Authorities begins.
The start of the project “Providing supporting measures – Strengthening the Reform of Local Government in Cyprus”, the Minister of the Interior Nikos Nouris announced today at an event at the Press and Information Office.
The project, whose implementation lasts 30 months from January 2023 to June 2025, has a total budget of €840,000 and is included in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of the Republic of Cyprus.
The contractor of the project is the Council of Europe, which has wide expertise in local government issues and especially in issues of reforms in this area. Partners of the Council of Europe, based on the voluntary contribution agreement signed with the Republic of Cyprus for this purpose, are the Ministry of the Interior as well as the Associations of Municipalities and Communities.
In his greeting at the event, Mr. Nouris said that with the use of the special educational tools that the Council has, as well as the wide network of partners with expertise in local government reform issues, “we are proceeding with the training of elected officials as well as the rest executives in the Local Self-Government by transferring expertise and applied practices that have already been adopted by other member states”.
The goal of the Ministry of the Interior and also of its partners, as noted by Mr. Nouris, is the transition to the new self-governing form in the smoothest way while simultaneously providing the appropriate guarantees in order to provide more efficient and higher level services to the citizens.
Mr. Nouris emphasized that this huge reform which the Government persistently claimed and succeeded in passing of, will change the map of Local Self-Government in Cyprus.
As he said, in the elections of May 2024, the citizens will elect the Mayors and Community Leaders of the new entities, which will certainly be enriched in terms of population, with increased competences in a number of issues, administratively and financially autonomous, according to the standards of the European Charter of Local Self-Government , with strengthened internal control and transparency mechanisms, increased responsibilities and greater opportunity for citizen participation in decision-making.
He said that the big beneficiary of this transition will be the citizen and the rural dweller because he will be able to enjoy quality services at the lowest possible cost. Particularly in the communities, he noted, the creation of the Service Provision Complexes, gives the possibility of strengthening the new structures with the necessary staff to provide upgraded services in the countryside, taking advantage of the economies of scale that will naturally arise.
The Minister of the Interior stated that this planning was not done today but is a product of the implementation of the National Strategic Training and Capacity Building of Local Government in Cyprus, which was formed in 2018 with the valuable contribution of the Expertise Center for Good Governance of the Council of of Europe and was adopted by the Ministry of the Interior.
Mr. Nouris thanked Alina Tatarenko, Head of the Expertise Center for Good Governance of the Council of Europe, the Presidents of the Associations of Municipalities and Communities of Cyprus, his colleagues in the Ministry and the representatives of the Cypriot Academy of Public Administration.
He expressed the certainty that the final result will be the desired one and that with the completion of the second term of President Anastasiades and his Government, one of the most important goals that had been set is being implemented: To change the Local Government map in our country in favor of the citizens”, he concluded.
