Farmers threaten hunger strike over subsidies

FORTY THREE Paphos farmers have threatened to go on hunger strike next Tuesday if they do not receive subsidies they say were promised to them.

The sheep and goat farmers plan to assemble outside the Paphos offices of KOAP, the organisation for farmers’ payments, at 10am in protest.

They say some 4,000 animal breeders lodged applications with KOAP during the last three months and they are the only ones still waiting for money. The farmers have been told this delay was due to a member of KOAP staff being off work sick.

According to the president of the district committee of animal breeders, Evagoras Chrysanthou, the breeders have waited long enough for their financial claims to be settled.

“The glass of patience has overfilled,” he said. Chrysanthou said “cheap excuses” from KOAP were no longer acceptable.

It appears that all the farmers organisations are backing the 43 animal breeders and say ther claim is justified. The district secretary of agricultural union EKA, Panicos Leonidas said the behaviour of some administrators of the farmers payments office was intolerable.

“There should no longer be delays in payments as the system has been modernised, and the procedure simplified,” he said.

Leonidas pointed out that he had been assured by the commissioner of KOAP, Christos Mavrokordatos, that “money would be going into the farmers accounts on Monday.”

“But, these excuses ,which have been given in this instance for non-payment, are not serious and there is no way that the absence of one employee should mean the whole of KOAP comes to a grinding halt,” he said.

 

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.