Cyprus pensions set to increase ahead of elections

President Tassos Papadopoulos has promised a hike in pensions by the end of the year but other issues such as 14th salaries as well as the one-time payment of CYP20,000 for a third child will have to wait until after next year’s elections.
Papadopoulos made the promise during the public servants union PASYDY’s annual conference. He also accused the managers of certain public departments of evaluating their staff with much higher grades than they deserve to make themselves look good. He said the lack of an effective evaluation system was having a negative impact on the island’s already ailing public services.
“The levelling tactic that is followed by some department managers of the public service, to describe the service of all their employees – at a rate of almost 95 percent– as excellent is not an act of justice: it’s an accommodation for the managers themselves,” Papadopoulos said during his speech. “It is also an act of injustice, because it rewards the mediocre and victimises the truly excellent,” he added.
“I am calling on the Public Service Committee to evaluate such department managers, who follow the accommodating stance of levelling evaluation, as adverse and insufficient to maintain or reach an administrative position.”
Papadopoulos invited PASYDY to discuss the many problems faced in the public service, along with the restructuring and modernisation of services.
President Papadopoulos also referred to the Cabinet’s recent approval of a supplementary budget for the creation of 600 new positions in the public service to cover new needs.
Finance Minister Michalis Sarris meanwhile said that the government would honour its commitment not to expand on an agreed moratorium on hiring in the civil service.
Speaking at the PASYDY congress, Sarris said the government would make good on its promise of opening new positions in understaffed departments, including Town Planning, Immigration and divisions in the ministries of the Environment, Health and Labour.
The minister praised PASYDY for its “responsible stance” with regard to the gradual extension of retirement age to 63.
On the economy, Sarris focused on Cyprus’ adoption of the single currency next year, saying adoption of the euro would boost state finances.
“Prices are not expected to rise, since the eurozone is an area of low inflation, and in any case the value of the Cyprus pound is greater that that of the euro,” noted Sarris.
Some of the benefits of switching to the euro would be better loan terms, limiting currency conversion costs, the saving of resources through a drop in interest rates and transparency in consumer prices, and incentives to foreign businessmen wishing to invest in Cyprus.
All this would contribute to sustaining conditions of macroeconomic stability, he added.
However, Sarris hinted that the obligations arising from membership of the eurozone might mean more sacrifices from civil servants.
“We are perhaps the only EU-member country where state employees enjoy extremely generous pension plans, without substantial contributions on their part. But for how much longer can we sustain such a one-sided system?
“Has the time come when we should start thinking about introducing a system of contributions [to the pension fund] in the civil service?”