DIKO Deputy Marios Matsakis yesterday joined residents in their protest against government plans to set up a drug rehabilitation centre in Kornos.
The issue came to light when a local paper recently published Health Ministry plans to rent a villa in the affluent Larnaca district that would act as a rehabilitation clinic for drug addicts.
The problem was, none of the residents in the area had been informed of these plans and they are now planning to take whatever measures possible to see the proposal is not enforced, said Giorgios Panayiotou, President of the Kornos village Community Council.
The area itself is a very wealthy, residential district, and surrounding houses are worth over £500,000 each, he claimed.
The four-bedroom villa to be rented belongs to a British man married to a Cypriot, who decided to rent out his property for an estimated monthly fee of £1,800 after he and his wife moved to Nicosia.
On Sunday, all residents gathered to express the fear that a clinic of this sort would only attract danger, such as unwelcome drug pushers. They were joined in their plight by Matsakis, DISY deputy Zacharias Zachariou and Green Party deputy, George Perdikis.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, Matsakis said that although he supported the foundation of another drug rehabilitation centre, he did not believe the allocated area was appropriate.
“I’m not against a drug rehabilitation centre,” he said. “Far from it in fact, since it is I that suggested such an institution in the past to begin with. But I believe the government should have communicated its plans with the local authority and the residents first, so that some sort of discussion could be had between all parties concerned.”
Instead, two people made a rash decision that they were now planning to execute, no questions asked, he said.
“What they should have done was to carry out a study to see how suitable the area and house is for such a plan. What they would have found out is that it is not, as I do not believe you can have a centre in that specific, developed area,” Matsakis said.
Although the outspoken deputy has a house in the area, he said he was not near enough the site to be affected by it.
“Besides, that is irrelevant,” he said. “The point is the residents are afraid that the drug addicts might start wandering about and that their presence will attract other unwelcome individuals.”
Although he admitted similar centres might be efficient abroad, he did not believe that would be the case in Cyprus.
“A lot of things operate differently abroad,” he said. “It is public knowledge that when both the General Hospital of Limassol and Nicosia started drug detoxification programmes, drugs used to filter through and pushers would gather outside and wander around. This is what will most likely happen here as well.”
He accused the government of disorganisation and flippancy, claiming that it was a ridiculous notion to think a four-bedroom villa was appropriate for a drug rehab centre since it was too small to begin with.
“They probably thought it up so that the psychiatrists involved could have a nice holiday home to go to. This is a matter that needs serious discussion and scrutiny.”
Dr. Kyriakos Veresies, Scientific Director of the Centre for Education about Drugs and Treatment of Drug Addicted Persons (KENTHEA) believes that if the public were kept well informed on drugs issues this centre would not be a problem.
But Matskais hit back and asked why the residents should be educated.
“What about the residents and how they feel? These people are being affected and they weren’t even asked,” he charged. “You sympathise with the drug addicts and ask how they feel and yet no-one stops to think about the people that bought a house in the area for a bit of peace and quiet. If that’s the case, you could say a drug addict chose to do drugs. What did the residents do to deserve having this imposed on them? It might be a social problem, but there are better ways of dealing with it and I find their reaction completely justifiable,” Matsakis said.
Matsakis said the centre should be built somewhere remote, similar to the Ayia Skepi centre in the Machairas Mountains
“They make decisions alone and carry them out alone. Is that how things should be planned?” he asked.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
