The Interior Ministry has declared a salary upgrade awarded by Amathunta municipality to one of its officers illegal, as the Audit Office prepares to open a formal investigation into the Limassol district authority following complaints lodged last month.
Complaints were submitted to the Audit Office on April 17, according to Phileleftheros, which confirmed the development with the Service directly. The complaints cover financial matters, management practices, and procedures at the municipality. The allegations have also been forwarded by letter to the relevant ministries.
According to information available to Phileleftheros, the Audit Office will turn its attention to Amathunta immediately after it completes its ongoing review of Paphos municipality — a probe into practices during the tenure of suspended Paphos mayor Phedon Phedonos, for which a special audit team has been assembling findings ahead of a formal report.
Offset fees allegations
The initial complaint to the Audit Office centres on the handling of offset fees — a practice that drew intervention from the Interior Ministry after similar issues emerged at other municipalities.
According to the allegations, when a developer sought planning relaxation — such as permission to build above the floor ratio set by the local plan — fees were imposed but allegedly not paid into municipal coffers. Instead, the complainant alleges, developers who received permits were directed to pay the money to another contractor to carry out public works on behalf of the municipality.
The complainant further alleges there was no transparency around this practice, and names well-known construction companies that took on works under what he describes as questionable circumstances. A specific allegation concerns a road-surfacing project. The total amount of offset fees alleged to have been handled without transparency stands at €1.5 million.
Vehicle and salary
Separate complaints cover the municipality’s official vehicle and the nature of journeys made using it.
A significant portion of the complaint concerns the salary upgrade of a municipal officer without the required approval and — crucially, according to the complainant — without the individual having the necessary qualifications for the upgraded scale.
A further allegation holds that a contract for a public works project — clearing a specific site — was awarded to a company irregularly, without authorisation from the relevant state authority.
Municipal officers are also alleged to have refused to process an invoice submitted by that company after the cleaning work was carried out.
Mayor responds
Amathunta mayor Kyriacos Xydias, contacted by Phileleftheros, said he had already put his position to Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou directly. “I have briefed the minister on everything,” he said.
He attributed the anonymous complaints to remnants of the pre-reform era in local government. Xydias said that when he was elected mayor he was the first to require offset fees in cash form for planning relaxations, and that he did so on the basis of a formula to allow works to be carried out without delay.
“We would put out a tender for asphalt, for example, and the council was always kept informed,” he said, adding that he “never cared who won the tender.” He said contracts never went to the same developers repeatedly and that “everything was done with absolute transparency and full council knowledge.”
On the salary upgrade, Xydias said the process was lawful, that the individual concerned had both the qualifications and the capability for the role, and that the ministry had accepted his explanations.
“Everything is done with absolute transparency, with full council knowledge, for the benefit of the municipality and the improvement of our residents’ quality of life,” he said.
Ministry letter: ‘The salary upgrade is illegal’
A letter from the Interior Ministry to the Finance Ministry, dated March 2 and seen by Phileleftheros, addresses the Amathunta municipal budget for 2026 and the medium-term fiscal framework for 2026–2028.
In the letter, Antonis Economides, head of the local government directorate at the Interior Ministry, recommended that the budget be approved subject to two conditions. One concerns the officer at the centre of the salary complaint.
Economides notes that the individual “does not hold the qualifications required under the Service Scheme,” and that a Law Office opinion is awaited on provisions incorporated into model service schemes by the Union of Municipalities of Cyprus that deviate materially from standards applied across the public service.
The letter states that the municipality must include a separate budget provision for the post in question, flagged for abolition upon vacancy, given that “in our view the salary upgrade is illegal.”
The allegations against Amathunta municipality mirror those investigated by the competent authorities in connection with Paphos municipality during the mayoralty of Phedon Phedonos.
