President Nicos Anastasiades and members of the cabinet are still contributing part of their salary to the economic recovery, government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said on Tuesday after reports circulated that they no longer contribute.
In statements to reporters at the presidential palace, Prodromou said that the cuts that had been decided before Cyprus entered the Troika programme and which were a collective effort to correct public finances are still valid today, as required by legislation, both for the President and the government’s ministers.
Anastasiades had given up on 25 per cent of his monthly wages, his ministers 20 per cent.
“It is true that the government is negotiating with the trade unions in the public sector for the gradual restoration of the salary cuts since Cyprus is now in a completely different phase and has left the clouds of bankruptcy behind and there are surpluses,” Prodromou said.
Daily Politis reported on Monday that as of March this year Anastasiades, as well as members of his cabinet who are carry-overs from the first administration, had stopped instructing the treasury to deduct their contributions.
MPs have long stopped contributing part of their salary. By law, they had to contribute 10 per cent (€364) of their wages from 2010 to 2012. This obligation ended in August 2012, but deputies tried to keep it on the down-low. According to Politis, once the public caught on MPs grudgingly extended the contributions for another two months. A few months later, salary cutbacks were introduced anyway as part of broader austerity measures in the public sector.
For their part, judges agreed to chip in by relinquishing 20 per cent of their salary. This began in 2014 and ended at the beginning of 2017. On January 1, 2017, the supreme court simply informed the government that their voluntary contributions were no longer necessary as the state of economic emergency had elapsed.
On June 16, 2013 the supreme court ruled that salary cuts for judges as well as for civil servants were unconstitutional.
Salary contributions by state officials date back to the administration of Demetris Christofias. Initially they ran from April 2010 to March 2012. Facing public scrutiny once the measure was abandoned, the then government renewed the contributions (10 per cent) up until the end of Christofias’ term, in February 2013.
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