Christodoulou presents new Citizens’ Charter for efficient public service

A NEW Citizens’ Rights Charter aims to tackle the plagues of bureaucracy, delay and chaos in the public sector.

Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou presented the charter yesterday at a news conference.

Christodoulou said the Citizens’ Charter aimed at modernising the public services, establishing a proper complaints procedure and making everything clear, simple and transparent.

The Council of Ministers had decided to draw up the carter to improve the relations between the state and the citizen, he added.

The charter commits the public services to inform the public about the mechanisms and the procedures followed in all services, to fix mistakes quickly and effectively, to give citizens advise, to answer all letters in time and clearly. And under no circumstance can a fixed appointment between a member of the public and a public official be delayed by any more than 10 minutes.

The charter’s booklet on the town-planning department sets out, among other things, the laws by which a development can go ahead and the procedures that must be followed, as well as the time required for a procedure to be completed.

A list of useful addresses, contacts and phone-numbers are also included in the booklet for town-planning services.

A similar booklet is also available for the lands and survey department services, aiming at speeding up the notoriously complicated and bureaucratic procedures of the department’s services. It gives the public a chance to find out where to turn and which path to follow to fill out applications, transfer a property, and the like.

The Immigration Department’s booklet contains information on procedures for issuing a passport, gaining citizenship, immigration licensing and others.

Christodoulou insisted the charter’s provisions would be followed to the letter and that the citizen was the state’s number one priority.

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