Refugee loan rates subsidised through banks

The government has decided to halve the waiting time for refugees seeking a loan for housing and from beginning of 2007 will subsidise the interest that refugees and those affected from the 1974 war take directly from the banks.
The Finance Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Christos Patsalides, informed the House Refugee Committee that the Cabinet had approved the Committee’s suggestion for the subsidisation of interests on loans for those who are entitled to the body’s housing schemes and who have properties in the occupied north.

“Based on the Cabinet’s acceptance of our new proposal for the subsidisation of interest, which will come into effect on January 1, 2007, waiting time will reduced roughly by half,” said Committee Chairman Aristophanis Georgiou of AKEL, after the meeting.
The committee, which was discussing annual budget of the financial body for refugee loans, had previously asked the Co-op Central Bank and the Housing Finance Cooperation to lend a helping hand to loan-applicants for housing schemes, so that repayment time of the loans is extended and payments are reduced.
The spokesman for the Housing Finance Cooperation told deputies that the organisation had accepted the suggestion, but the bank’s spokesman had not been able to attend yesterday’s meeting and submit its official response.
The president of the Financial Body for Refugees, Akis Pouros, expressed his satisfaction over the government’s assistance in the past few years, saying the Body’s state funding had increased from CYP25 mln to CYP35 mln.
According to information submitted by the group, the waiting time for the assessment of applications to the organisation’s housing schemes was three years in 2002, three years and one month in 2003, three years and seven months in 2004, three years and four months in 2005 and four years in 2006.