THE refugee financing agency plans to lend out £7.5 million next year, but deputies are angry that bureaucratic procedures mean sums earmarked for this year have not been spent.
The issue was raised during examination by the House Refugee Committee of the agency’s budget for 1998.
The Finance Ministry’s Andreas Chimarides said the agency for the equal distribution of wealth was budgeting £7.5 million for housing, professional, educational and medical loans.
It would also issue guarantees for another £7 million – £3.5 million each for housing and professional loans, he added.
Officials from the agency said all the money budgeted this year for housing and 70 per cent of cash for educational loans had been approved. But only 30 per cent had been absorbed in loans for medical treatment or for the purchase of household equipment. The sums for professional schemes was also low (40 per cent) because applications were not well completed.
But deputies, in particular Lefteris Christoforou of Disy, were not satisfied. He said that although the government had generously assigned some £11 million in loans and guarantees for the scheme, only 30 per cent of the money had actually been given out because of bureaucratic difficulties.
“There is a difference between approving an application and actually handing out the money. Unless the money is distributed by the end of the year it will be lost because it cannot be carried forward to next year,” he said.
And Christoforou said figures from the agency indicated that only £3 million had actually been handed out to applicants.
And he said that of the 900 applications, 60 per cent had been approved, 30 per cent rejected while in 10 per cent of cases applicants had not followed their applications through.
Officials countered that procedures to process applications took between three and five months, adding that part of the delay was the fault of the applicants.
And they said £2.8 million had been approved so far, with £2.3 million already handed out and the rest in the pipeline.
The cooperative credit bank said that once paperwork was completed it would be able to issue loans of up to £50,000 with government guarantees.
The Housing Finance Organisation said the agency subsidised lower interests for applications it approved. But applicants still had to make a deposit, just like other members. “We do not have the money to lend out without a deposit,” a spokesman said.
