Municipalities (Amendment) Bill negotiations completed

The meeting of the Administrative, Public and Health Affairs Committee of the Assembly of the Republic came to an end. During the meeting, the general discussion of the Municipalities (Amendment) Bill was completed.

According to the statement made by the Assembly of the Republic, the committee discussed the “Municipalities (Amendment) Bill” on its agenda and completed the general discussion of the relevant draft law. The Committee will continue its work on the draft law in the next meeting.

UBP MP Özdemir Berova The meeting of the Administrative, Public and Health Affairs Committee convened under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman of the Committee, CTP MP Filiz Besim, committee members UBP MPs Ziya Öztürkler and Emrah Yesilirmak attended.

The meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Faiz Sucuoglu, Minister of Interior Unal Üstel, Minister of Labor and Social Security Hasan Taçoy and Deputy Speaker Fazilet Özdenefe also participated.

CTP President Tufan Erhürman, UBP MPs Olgun Amcaoglu, Oguzhan Hasipoglu, Hasan Kucuk, Alişan Şan, Storm Carnation, Hüseyin Çavuş, Ahmet Savaşan, Sadık Gardiyanoğlu, CTP MPs Fikri Toros, Teberrüken Uluçay, Armağan Candan, Erkut Şahali, Asim Akansoy, Product Solyalı, Şifa Çolakoğlu, Fide Kursat, Ceyhun Birinci, Ongun Talat, HP MP Aysegul Baybars and YDP MP Talip Atalay also took part in the meeting.

Invited to the Committee meeting were officials from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Interior, the Personnel Department, the TRNC Attorney General's Office, the Department of Urban Planning, the Veterinary Department, the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce, the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Industry, the Union of Cyprus Turkish Municipalities, the Union of Cyprus Turkish Chambers of Engineers and Architects, the Union of Cyprus Turkish Quarries, the Mayor of Nicosia Turkish Municipality, the Mayor of Kyrenia, the Mayor of Güzelyurt, the Mayor of İskele, the Mayor of Lefke, the Mayor of Lapta, Mayor of Alsancak, Mayor of Vadili, Mayor of Çatalköy, Mayor of Paşaköy, Mayor of Serdarlı, Mayor of Değirmenlik, Mayor of Gönyeli, Mayor of Yeniboğaziçi, Mayor of Akdoğan, Mayor of Dikmen, Mayor of Geçitkale, Mayor of Mehmetçik, Mayor of Tatlısu, Mayor of Akıncılar, BES, Bel-Sen, Dev-İş, Hür-İş, TRNC Muhtars Association and Mediha Piro Azer participated and made opinions and suggestions on the draft law.

GENERAL RATIONALE

The general justification of the Municipalities (Amendment) Bill is as follows:

“In order to ensure the participation of individuals in local governments, to develop our municipalities in the name of the principles of accountability and transparency, to enable them to have a more autonomous, auditable structure and to help them carry out their work in line with the principles of accountability, they are seen as autonomous organizations that fulfill their responsibilities.

In line with the above-mentioned objectives, our main goal is to create opportunities for municipal councils to convene and produce decisions in order to meet local needs, which are the main duties of our municipalities, to make the council more functional and to improve opportunities for accountability and transparency to our people, and to ensure that municipal services are not disrupted.

The expenses of our municipalities, which seek to improve the quality of life of the people in their towns, are constantly increasing in line with these objectives, and their revenues have difficulty in meeting these expenses.

Some legal problems have emerged in the process of our municipalities working within the framework of modern municipalism understanding, in the attempts to complete infrastructure deficiencies and in the processes of increasing the expectations of our people from local governments.

In this context, intervening in problems on the spot and establishing an organic link between the local administration and the ministry, making changes in the duties of municipalities regarding zoning, amending the rules regulating the powers of municipalities, making municipal councils more functional, applying representation allowances to mayors in accordance with the representation allowances applied to public officials, restricting the powers of vice mayors who deputize the mayor, rearranging taxes, duties, fees and charges due to changes in the Turkish lira and the circulation of money over time, adapting some crimes and penalties to the conditions of the day, harmonizing the ability of municipalities to borrow with current conditions, more effective supervision of construction, deductions from contributions, reorganization of the working procedures and principles of municipal councils, amendments to the rules on termination of membership, management of solid waste in consideration of public health, The need to amend many articles has arisen to meet the needs arising during the implementation of the law, to take measures to prevent the recurrence of the problems encountered, to amend the rules to increase the effectiveness of financial audit, to provide ease of payment for the insurance and provident fund premium and deposit debts of the municipalities. Therefore, in light of the above, the law has been reorganized and this (Amendment) Draft Law has been prepared.”