Mağusa is ‘not going bankrupt’

GAZİMAĞUSA Municipality is “not going bankrupt”, Mayor İsmail Arter has said.

He hit out at claims that the council was drowning in debt, during a conference organised by the Mağusa Walled City Association (Mas-Der) last Saturday.

“Since I came to office [in 2014] there have been 18 statements aimed at the municipality [by the local branch of the Republican Turkish Party] and 12 of these have claimed that [it] is on the verge of going under,” he said.

“At the end of the day, would I want a bomb to go off in my hands when I have worked so hard [for the council]?”

He said the accusations of financial dire straits were part of a “political argument” against him.

Mr Arter used the Mas-Der event to highlight a number of schemes that he said he had initiated to preserve the rich history and architecture of the walled city, including one that had “been on the shelf for 10 years”.

A four million TL project to landscape the town’s defensive moat, partly funded by Turkey and that had should have been completed last August, will be finished “by the end of this month”, added.

He said he had done “all he could” to improve the walled city but that government departments also needed to take responsibility.

Mr Arter’s comments came just days after staff at Yenierenköy Municipality returned to work after being paid for the first time in months.

Their jobs still remain under threat, he however, with ministers considering merging Yenierenköy Municipality with the local authority in Dipkarpaz.

Esentepe and Lapta administrations were also claimed last week to be at risk of “closure” by the government.