The mayor of Paphos on Monday pointed the finger straight at President Nikos Christodoulides, alleging that the latter personally intervened to deny the local municipality the right to lease a building.

In a statement, Phedonas Phedonos strongly hinted that the Christodoulides administration is singling out the Paphos municipality.

He was referring to a decision disqualifying the municipality from a long-term lease of a building that formerly housed the Greek Co-operative Savings Bank of Paphos.

Phedonos said this flies in the face of a standing cabinet decision to lease former buildings of co-operative banks to local government authorities or grant these buildings for use by state services.

“Whereas this has happened in dozens of cases in other municipalities (Limassol, Larnaca, Nicosia), for some strange reason the Paphos municipality was denied the lease,” Phedonos stated.

According to the mayor, on January 29 this year the municipality formally contacted the government, asking about the matter.

“To our surprise, we received a letter of response on February 10, that is, just eight working days after our own letter. This gave us cause for concern, as we are not used to getting such prompt responses,” the mayor goes on.

“The answer was that at this stage the building cannot be leased to the municipality since it currently houses employees of the former Cyprus Co-operative Bank (doValue Cyprus), that the lease contract expires in 2027, and that our request would be re-examined after 2027.”

Phedonos goes on to claim that “from entirely reliable information I have received, the president intervened so that the building in question be granted to the Paphos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“This marks the first time that a building of a former co-operative bank is not leased to a local government authority or for use by the state, but rather is given to a legal entity [the chamber of commerce] that represents the business world…something not provided for in the cabinet decision.”

The mayor complained of double standards. He noted that for the last two-and-half years there remain pending decisions of the cabinet on leasing to the Paphos municipality two state-owned land parcels. One of the land plots is intended to host a polytechnic school for the American University of Beirut, the other for building facilities for a medical school.

The reason or pretext cited for this delay in approval, the mayor said, is that regulations do not provide for making state land available for the development of university infrastructures.

“On the other hand, there seems to be no problem in granting state property to organisations that are not even considered part of the broader public sector,” he said, again referring to the case of the Paphos chamber of commerce.