Irregular payments to farmers were conducted by the Cyprus Agricultural Payments Organisation (CAPO) in the context of utilizing compost in permanent and annual crops under the Ecological Program intervention to improve soil organic matter and quality and rational management of nutrients.
This issue arose during yesterday’s session of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture during the discussion of a problem concerning a group of farmers during the implementation of the program.
Members of parliament and representatives of agricultural organizations urged the Ministry of Agriculture to proceed with financial assistance using national funds for a total of 16 farmers whose applications were rejected since they had acquired compost from a company that provided them with waste instead of compost.
These individuals are claiming around €260,000 based on purchase invoices from a problematic waste management company, and according to CAPO regulations, they were exempted from payments.
The recommendation of the MPs is for the Minister of Agriculture to consider a request for granting assistance due to these farmers and, therefore, they called upon her to make a political decision after examining the matter with the Legal Service.
However, as was observed during the discussion on the implementation conditions of the measure, an obligation was included, stating that the purchase of compost must be made from a licensed waste management unit and that compost production must meet the specifications of the relevant legislation.
Licensed waste managers are only those facilities approved as waste managers for compost production by the competent authority, which is the Environmental Department.
Specifically, during the preparation, announcement, and implementation stages of the specific measure, the number of licensed facilities was only two, while there were other pending requests for licensing.
At that time, the competent state services decided that to cover the necessary quantities of compost, corresponding to the budget of the measure and for the purpose of competition, both companies already licensed for waste management for compost production and companies that had submitted applications and their licensing was pending from the competent authority, which appeared to secure licenses later, should be included in the list of eligible suppliers.
Eventually, 7 waste managers were included in the list, of which only 2 were licensed during the announcement and implementation of the measure.
Later, licenses had been obtained only by the other 6, while the 7th application is still under examination today.
The amount allocated to this program reaches €1.5 million.
A total of 79 applicants submitted applications for the cultivation of 2,240 plots of land, with the total area reaching 10,050 decades.
The envisaged amount of support is €170 per decare for plowed crops and €120 per decare for tree crops, vegetables, potatoes, and vineyards. Purchase invoices were submitted only by the 61 applicants who had declared 7,870 decades.
Of the 61, 16 submitted invoices from the problematic waste management company, while one of them had also purchased from a second supplier.
