House releases funds for government office rents

MPs on Monday released funding earmarked for the renting of premises by government ministries and state departments, including one line item for a €9,000-a-month rent of office space by parliament itself.

Lawmakers were irked on hearing that parliament services had gone ahead and signed a rental contract with the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (Cyta), for renting two floors on Cyta’s ‘Elektra’ building – for €9,145 per month.

Parliament services had inked the agreement with Cyta without waiting for the House finance committee to release the funds.

House finance committee chair Christiana Erotokritou (Diko) criticised the move, saying this was no time for extravagance with taxpayers’ money.

Responding, a parliament functionary said the contract with Cyta was a done deal, adding that it was “a necessary evil” because parliament simply lacks adequate office and storage space.

“We resort to using MPs’ offices, conference rooms of political parties, even corridors,” the functionary said.

Overall, parliament services requested – and got – some €200,000 released for rental, storage and parking space contracts.

The committee additionally released €3 million to the labour ministry for the rental of office and non-office space. The amount in question will cover only a few months, not the entire year.

Likewise the transport ministry will be getting €1.3 million – covering the months of May through to December.

The committee also released €530,000 for the rental of the premises housing the defence ministry.

A defence ministry representative told MPs of plans to relocate to a new building altogether.