Refugees being marginalised says House committee

Within the past five years the government has installed only 16 lifts in refugee housing estates, the head of the House refugee committee said on Tuesday.

Discussing maintenance contracts in general and lifts in particular on Tuesday, MPs on the House committee slammed the government for abandoning refugee housing estates. It also called for the installation of lifts in refugee apartment buildings to be speeded up.

“The government has done an excellent job in marginalising refugees and abandoning refugee estates,” committee chair Skevi Koukouma said.

She added that there has been a clear reversal in the entire refugee policy. By January 2014, Koukouma said, 93 lifts had been installed in refugee housing estates, out of 380 blocks of flats where lifts were expected to installed.

However, in the last five years, she said, “the government managed and installed 16 lifts.”

The committee last week visited refugee estates where they heard from residents about their problems, including the poor state of the houses they live in and lack of lifts in apartment buildings. Many elderly persons living in these apartments complained for the lack of lifts. They said they are no longer able to go up and down several flights of stairs daily, especially when carrying grocery bags.

Disy MP Onoufrios Koullas said the patchy way in which the refugees’ problems have been dealt with over the last 40 years have begun to appear everywhere.

Koullas said that in 69 refugee estates many practical problems have been created. He added, however, that the town planning department has informed MPs that these problems are not due to budgeting but due to procedural matters.

Among these, he said, are contractors who fail to meet their contractual obligations.

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