Dangerous buildings in Cyprus are “a thorn in the government’s side”, Interior Minister Constantinos Ioannou said on Thursday.

Speaking to the House interior committee, he said his ministry is undertaking “extensive discussions” with municipalities to deal with the matter, and said it was his ministry’s opinion that responsibility for it should be transferred to district governments.

This, he said, should be done as district governments since this year’s reforms have been responsible for planning and building permits within their own districts.

With this in mind, he said the government would submit an amendment to the law on roads and buildings, which he said will “strengthen competent authorities’ tools to enforce” the law.

The bill is currently being examined by the legal service.

Ioannou also pointed to the issue of road maintenance, saying the government had allocated a total of €3 million to local authorities to mend and maintain roads “of primary importance”.

Those roads were previously the responsibility of the public works department, but local government reforms have seen the matter delegated downwards.

Ioannou said the public works department would contact municipalities to inform them regarding “how the roads were maintained until now and the amount of maintenance that was done”.

He also said the municipalities would have the ability to record their own needs and prioritise the roads they see fit within their municipal boundaries.

On this, he described this year’s local government reform as a “success”, and said local authorities and district governments are now “administratively and financially autonomous entities”.

He added that the central government will remain “constantly alert” and “take care of any problems that arise” and will continue “supporting them through both the transfer of personnel and expertise, as well as with the promotion of legislation to improve their operating framework”.

“It is up to local authorities and district governments to increase the rhythm and speed of their efforts to deal with the organisational issues they face, so that, as soon as possible, they meet people’s expectations,” he said.

He went on to say that to this end, “several distortions” in the existing reform legislation had been identified as the reforms carried out, and that these matters would be rectified in due course.

One such matter was ensuring that the central government’s urban planning authority can refer to cases brought to local authorities or to district governments, especially in cases where local residents in an area where planning permission is sought are against the plans.

Ioannou said clarification that the urban planning authority can refer to local authorities’ opinions on this matter would appear in the government gazette on Friday.