Parliament to vote on Okypy budget

The annual budget of the state health services organisation (Okypy) will be submitted to parliament’s plenum for a vote, it emerge after an extraordinary house health committee meeting on Monday.

Last Thursday, the committee met regularly to discuss various questions raised over the budget.

Okypy presented the committee with a memorandum, which includes, among other things, the projects being promoted in state hospitals, as well as the agency’s revenue from 2019 to date.

Speaking before the committee, Robertos Karahannas, Chief Financial Officer of Okypy, said the budget is “strongly developmental” as it aims to cover expenses for projects to upgrade state hospitals and stressed that this is why the agency is requesting a two-year extension of the government grant so that these can be completed. He noted that some of these projects could not be completed due to the extraordinary circumstances created by the pandemic.

As the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Okypy, Marinos Kallis, said in a statement after the meeting, the budget for the projects exceeds €100 million, adding that the goal for many of them is to complete them within the year.

The memorandum presented by the organisation to the commission includes more than 20 projects across all public hospitals in Cyprus and about half of them are planned to be completed within 2024.