By Andria Kades
THE Association of Retail Trade (PASYLE) is pleased the Labour ministry submitted a bill to keep shops open on Sundays, it said in a statement.
“It is now up to parliament to decide on the fate of 7,500 new employees and the €470,000 a month that swamp public accounts from social insurance and other contributions.”
According to the regulations, working hours for shops in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos would be from 5am to 10pm, Monday through Saturday, and 11am to 7pm on Sundays.
In Famagusta, shops may remain open from 5am to 11pm from Monday to Saturday, and 7:30am to 11pm on Sunday.
Satisfied after Labour minister Zeta Emilianidou submitted the bill, PASYLE said the move proved that the government recognised the benefits of extended working hours, effective for the past 20 months that rejuvenated the market and boosted public revenue.
“It is obvious from the statistics that there is no benefit to closing shops on Sundays except for specific business interests that benefit from the monopoly.”
They called on MPs to reconsider their stance so they do not become the cause of mass job losses. The business community, which supports the measure, would not forgive them for this damage to society particularly in this period of unemployment.
AKEL called on the government to “abandon their dogmatic obsessions” and take steps that would “serve the public good, society and the economy and not large private interests.”
They accused ruling party DISY of serving the needs of a small group of large businesses ignoring the majority’s wishes and the consequences this has on small to medium businesses, employees and society as a whole.
“The government and Labour minister are trying with their shop opening hours to legalise the contents of the decrees the minister would issue, baptising all of Cyprus as a tourist area.”
This was a reference to powers Emilianidou was stripped of where she could issue shops with decrees on an ad-hoc basis where they were allowed to work later on weekdays and on Sundays.
A bill tabled by AKEL passed in parliament last month after they and business associations accused her of not adhering to the rule that they should only be given to shops in designated tourist areas as there were apparently shops operating near rubbish dumps that had decrees.
Responding to AKEL, the Labour ministry said that the opposition party is misinforming the public by referring to ad hoc decrees the minister was issuing.
“It [AKEL] forgets that the minister’s decrees issued until April 30, 2015 are legal and were issued with the same authorities provided by law with which for five years the minister of the AKEL administration issued decrees by which real estate values were set through the definition of touristic zones and shop hours, allowing some to accrue the pie of the market while others were left on the sidelines,” the announcement said.
It adds that as a result of this government’s policies, more than 7,000 long-term unemployed found employment and income.
