Residents of the Nicosia district are to pay a new rainwater tax, district governor Constantinos Yiorkadjis said on Wednesday, describing the tax as “necessary”.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency, he stressed that the amount payable will be “tiny” and has been calculated at an annual rate of 0.02 per cent of the value of the property.

This, he explained, would mean that “for a property worth €200,000, the annual fee will be just €4”.

“We are talking about a small annual charge, which returns to the public a substantial benefit of protection,” he said.

He added that the money raised by the new tax will be spent on “the basic maintenance and cleaning of rainwater pipes, many of which have never been cleaned”.

“This neglect poses serious risks to people’s infrastructure, security, and property,” he said.

Asked why, given that other districts had implemented similar taxes earlier, it has only now been implemented in the Nicosia district, he said there was “no relevant decree from cabinet designating the Nicosia sewerage board as the competent authority for the management of rainwater within its boundaries”.

Now, he said, “it was deemed necessary to implement an economically mild but technically necessary fee to ensure the minimum necessary maintenance of the infrastructure”.