SOME Members of Parliament are purposely delaying passing proposed town planning amnesty bills so that they will not be approved before Parliament dissolves in May, Interior Minister, Neoclis Sylikiotis said yesterday.
“Discussion has been postponed twice already and [they] have twice delayed giving their final stand on the bills,” Sylikiotis said of “a particular group of MPs”.
“Instead of protecting citizen’s rights and the interests of thousands of citizens … [these MPs] are trying to suspend the government’s initiative leaving exposed thousands of ordinary buyers – hostages to the maintenance of the standing interests of the few,” said Sylikiotis.
Sylikiotis accused MPs of deliberately slowing things down over the past year, “in a co-ordinated and methodical way, constantly coming up with new suggestions or proposals for the House Interior Committee, many of which aimed to change or weaken every innovative proposal put forth by the bills.”
Sylikiotis further named DIKO’s Marios Karoyian who as House president had pledged to pass three of the five proposed bills last Thursday but instead delayed so that all five could be considered together.
“People can judge for themselves if it’s our fault that we’ve practically dumped everything else to work on this issue,” was DISY’s Ionas Nicolaou brusque response. Nicolaou reasserted Parliament’s willingness to pass all five bills before May.
The five proposed bills collectively compose the government’s town-planning amnesty package. They aim to put an end to irregularities to the property market.
Currently, an estimated 130,000 title deeds still haven’t been issued due to a cluster of administrative problems, one of the main ones being that property developers had not paid mortgages to the bank for property which many buyers had already paid for.
The government has proposed significant fines for delays, omissions or fraudulent information in documentation which goes towards obtaining a title deed. It has further proposed to legalise, at a fee, some irregularities carried out by residents after buying a property, such as closing up a balcony or building a garage.
Banking institutions were not happy about the package, telling the House Interior Committee last week that listing a mortgaged property’s irregularities on the final certificate or title deed would adversely affect the property’s value.
“The proposed laws are very complicated. They have become an example of the adoration of bureaucracy!” DISY’s Maria Kyriacou said yesterday.
