Public debt in the north is growing

THE Turkish Cypriot administration in the north has 5 billion Turkish Liras in debt, it’s former ‘Prime Minister’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer was reported as saying on Wednesday.

Quoted on the front page of the daily Halkin Sesi, Soyer reportedly told a television channel the north’s budget was TL 4.5bn but the ‘state’ had 5bn in debts.

This is how “Greece went bankrupt” Soyer, a deputy for the Republican Turkish Party said.

While he had served as ‘Prime Minister’, some TL 270m of internal debts had been repaid, he added, while specifying that internal debt can be accumulated for investment matters, but when it’s done to pay off the public payroll, it jeopardises the future of the place.

Paying off ‘state’ salaries in the north for May as well as internal debt it has accumulated after it took out loans to pay last month’s payroll will prove difficult as it has yet to sign a new financial protocol with Turkey.

If Turkey doesn’t send any money, then it will be hard to pay back salaries or repay the internal debt by the deadline of June 8. If it fails to do so, it will have to pay interest, Kibris Postasi reported.

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.