REDUCE, MERGE and privatise was the message from Strovolos Mayor Savvas Eliofotou, who has called for the civil service to be streamlined so municipalities can in turn be effectively modernised.
“The efficient merging of services can be done to the extent that we are ready to accept … the redundancy of excess personnel and the provision of services from private enterprise in some instances,” said Eliofotou.
Eliofotou’s remarks were made in reference to an ongoing plan by Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis to modernise and restructure local government in Cyprus over the next ten years.
“The programme of actions and initiatives aims for the promotion of a fundamental restructuring [of local government] by means of a long-term process which will complete in a number of different stages,” said Sylikiotis.
Eliofotou also saw a role for private enterprise in the offering of competing tenders for many of the services that local authorities presently provide.
The mayor said most people don’t care whether services are provided by the state or are or private corporations “provided that they are of good quality, at a good price and efficient”.
He added that the big problems are not experienced in the big town, where most services are well provided, but in the countryside and villages where there is little infrastructure for planning, organisation, culture and development.
Eliofotou said that it was in this domain that most of the work in terms of local government restructuring stood to be accomplished.
He emphasised that such a restructuring would involve unpopular measures, which he openly doubted whether any politician had the will withstand.
“If you want quality in the public services, keep the politicians away,” he said.
Eliofotou was keen to emphasise the practical dimensions and problems that might arise from such a restructuring.
For example, in terms of the provision of welfare services, where he noted the central authorities themselves admit they are not currently doing an ideal job, the state would clarify what role they wished to keep for themselves and the rest should be given to local government.
He said that you can’t address the restructuring of local and central government separately, “especially when central government keeps lagging behind”.
The National Centre of Municipal Government and Self-Government, attached to Greece’s Interior Ministry, was commissioned by Sylikiotis to undertake a study on the restructuring and make recommendations on the form it should take.
According to Sylikiotis, this study has identified the weaknesses and problems in the structure of local government, and the parameters which impact negatively on the exercise by municipal authorities in a productive way of their roles and responsibilities.
Currently the programme for the restructuring and modernisation of local government in Cyprus is at the discussion stage, which is set to last until the local authority elections in 2011.
During this stage, the Interior Ministry is engaging in dialogue on the form and nature which the restructuring should take, with “Cypriot society in its entirety”, including unions and the local authorities themselves.
“The basic aims of the ten-year programme will be the decentralisation, restructuring and strengthening of local authorities, their functional modernisation, the investigation of the role of municipalities, the improvement of the relations between local authorities and the state,” said Sylikiotis.
