Councillors threaten to quit ‘unless govt takes urgent action’

TEN new councillors were appointed to crisis-hit Yenierenköy Municipality this week following mass resignations — and then threatened to resign as well unless the government took urgent action to resolve the local authority’s financial woes.

The new council representatives replaced those who had quit the previous week after being confronted by angry workers who have not been paid for five months.

Former acting Mayor Mehmet Kadı last week symbolically handed over a key to the municipality building to Interior Ministry officials.

He said the monthly cost of paying back debts to central government meant there was not enough money left in the council coffers to pay staff.

Mr Kadı said the monthly wage bill for 112 employees was around 400,000TL, but that the municipality was only left with just a tenth of that figure after making debt repayments.

The new councillors were chosen following a majority vote of the Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) after it had been asked to advise on the matter by the Interior Ministry.

Three of the five YSK members voted in favour of allowing “runner-up” candidates in the most recent local elections, which took place in 2014, to become the new councillors.

YSK president Narin Ferdi Şefık and member Tanju Öncül voted against the move, however, saying a by-election should be held instead.

On Wednesday the new councillors and Municipality Workers’ Union (BES) leader Mustafa Yalınkaya held separate meetings with Interior Minister Ayşegül Baybars Kadri to find a solution to Yenierenköy Municipality’s problems.

Mr Yalınkaya said the meeting had gone well and said he had told the minister that workers, who have been on a “go-slow” protest for the last month, would go back to work “immediately” if their missing wages were paid.

He agreed to give Mrs Baybars Kadri three days’ “grace” to find a solution. A Yenierenköy councillor described the meeting as “positive”, adding that the minister had promised to take up the matter with Finance Minister Serdar Denktaş.

Meanwhile residents in 12 villages served by Yenirerenköy Municipality have complained of rubbish mounting up because of the unofficial industrial action.

Some locals have started disposing of waste in fields to avoid it piling up outside their homes, while others have been carting it off themselves to rubbish dumps.

Uncollected refuse has become infested with rats and flies, a report in Cyprus Today’s sister paper Kıbrıs said.

The report said that residents, however, sympathised with council workers — some of whom it was claimed had had their electricity cut off and homes repossessed because of getting behind on payments — and called on the government to intervene.