Foreign Ministry seeks to cut down on embassy costs

THE FOREIGN Ministry has ordered embassies around the world to hire local staff to replace transferred Cypriot employees in order to cut down on expatriate allowance costs.
Otherwise, the ministry warned they would not send any replacements to the embassies and that they would have to do with existing staff.

According to a letter sent to embassies, the Cabinet decision to recall Cypriot embassy employees is final and irreversible, and any employee attempting to delay his transfer will be transferred automatically.

“Let it be clear that if you fail to find and hire local staff to replace those who are being transferred, you will not receive replacements and you will have to do carry out embassy duties with the remaining staff, and if there are no staff, you will have to do the job yourselves until local staff is hired,” the letter, published in Phileleftheros, warns.

According to Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Sotos Zacheos, the Cypriot staff are given the option to resign from the public service and be hired as local staff, no longer eligible to receive expatriate allowances.

According to Phileleftheros, Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides has criticised advisers and press attachés abroad on their work to clear Cyprus’ name after the resounding ‘no’ to the Annan plan.

“To my disappointment, I have discovered that you have not forwarded to me any articles published or at least sent to newspapers – even if not published – by you,” a letter sent from Chrysostomides said.

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.