No municipal merriment in Nicosia and Paphos this year

PAPHOS and Nicosia are not holding New Year’s celebrations this year and will instead donate the money which was due to be spent to the Paphos food bank and to needy families in Nicosia.

Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas said the municipality has decided this year to cancel its celebrations to bring in the New Year due to financial difficulties.

The €10,000 which would have been used to organise the event, the mayor said, would be donated to the food bank.

“We will have other small events and on Sunday we will have a dance show with music at our Christmas village,” he said.

“Last year we did not organise an event to bring in the New Year because of the financial crisis and the money last year was also donated to help needy,” he said.

Earlier this month, Nicosia Mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis announced that 540 ‘love packages’ would be given to primary school children in the district.

The packages include coupons from Athienitis supermarket for the purchase of food and other items, coupons for free fuel from Exxon Mobil and entrance tickets to the Christmas Wonderland in the Constanza moat.

Yiorkadjis thanked all those who contributed to putting the packages together. “The packages are proof that people know and care about the problems that society is facing and especially the consequences to children even though both the public and private sectors are going through difficulties,” Yiorkadjis said.