PARLIAMENT yesterday asked the government to furnish more information regarding a demand to unfreeze 646 permanent positions in the public service to fill gaping holes in the administration, particularly in the health sector.
The positions had been frozen by the opposition-dominated parliament in December during the approval of the 2012 budget.
The government wants them released so that it can hire people, mainly for the health sector, which is facing a greater need.
House Finance Committee chairman, DIKO MP, Nicolas Papadopoulos said lawmakers had asked for information regarding the number of nurses in the public and private sectors since their figures show that the former is at least three times higher than the latter while the number of beds is the same.
“The responses will be key regarding our decisions on this legislation,” Papadopoulos said.
Papadopoulos said the government had decided in 2008 to stop opening permanent positions in the health sector in light of the implementation of a national health scheme, which has not been created yet.
The issue concerns making permanent over 160 nurses and 90 medical practitioners “and unfortunately it has not been explained to us why this decision should change at this difficult time for Cypriot finances.”
Papadopoulos said he did not disregard the fact that the flow of patients into state hospitals had increased due to the economic crisis, and suggested that these needs could be satisfied by temporary staff.
The DIKO official said they also wanted the finance minister’s pledge that the economy could sustain the new hires “because our data shows that things will be very difficult even for current personnel.”
DISY deputy chairman Averof Neophytou said his party was prepared to release funds immediately but only for temporary personnel.
Neophytou suggested that the government and ruling AKEL were trying to ‘sort out their own’ 10 months before the presidential elections.
“You do realise these policies will not pass,” he said.
Lawmakers heard that the state spends a lot of cash to train nurses and it would be a waste to hire temps.
AKEL MP Stavros Evagorou accused the opposition of obstructionism and stressed the urgent need for doctors and nurses in the public sector.
From the time there are needs “what I would expect, at least for the health sector, was the rest of the parties to quickly consent so that we approve them,” Evagorou said.
Earlier this month, figures from the Department of Statistics showed that the public sector shrank last year by a grand total of wo people despite government promises to reduce the size of the sector by 1,000. That promise was made more than a year ago.
There was a total of 58,673 people employed by the central government at the end of 2011.
Another 22,000 work in the wider public service including local authorities, state-run non-profit organisations and semi-state bodies.
