The many problems of the Municipalities of Epirus, which are also problems of almost all the regional Municipalities of the country, small and large, were conveyed to the president of the Board of Directors of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece, Dimitris Papastergiou, by the elected officials of the primary local government of Epirus.
In the hall of the municipal council of Arta, a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Regional Union of Epirus Municipalities was held, with the participation of the board of the KEDE and the members of the board of the Central Union of Municipalities as well as the president of the KEDE had the opportunity to hear live many complaints but and the intense concern of the Municipalities of Epirus. A meeting of the Board of Directors of KEDE followed in the same place.
The “Antonis Tritsis” program which is not progressing satisfactorily for most Municipalities, the understaffing of Municipalities for which the state has been doing nothing for years except to give “aspirins” with fixed-term staff, the legislative framework for the management of stray animals etc. were some of the problems raised by most of the Mayors.
The President of the Regional Union of Epirus Municipalities, Mr. Christos Dakaletsis, first asked for clarifications in the Local Government electoral law.
An issue that was recently raised with the Deputy Minister of the Interior is the need for Municipalities to finance road safety projects from the Recovery Fund, an opportunity that was denied to 13 of the 18 total Municipalities of Epirus, because a population limit of 20,000 inhabitants had been set for Municipalities that have the right to submit proposals. “It is obvious that it is at the discretion of Ministers Skylakakis and Petsa to change the limit, the Recovery Fund has money available and the injustice must be removed immediately” noted Mr. Dakaletsis. Furthermore, the president of the PED of Epirus asked to improve the certification framework of the Municipalities’ playgrounds, as the one time given for the compliance of the Municipalities is not enough and there is a problem with the participation of the employees in the competent committees due to their refusal to participate. Finally, Mr. Dakaletsis asked for an extension to the community service program.
The problems
Christos Tsirogiannis, Mayor of Artaion and member of the Board of Directors. of KEDE, referred to some issues of local interest for Arta, in which KEDE could intervene and he also requested an extension to staff contracts such as Community Service.
Yiannis Lolos, Mayor of Igoumenitsa, after referring to a fortunately not so serious work accident that happened in the last few hours to a cleaning worker of his Municipality, requested that the next government of the country finally give the possibility to the Municipalities to hire staff in their remunerative services. Both Mr. Lolos and the Mayor of Filiaton Spyros Pappas raised the issue of the institutional framework for the management of stray animals.
Mr. Pappas as well as Mayor G. Karaiskakis Periklis Migdos expressed serious complaints about the implementation of the “Antonis Tritsis” financial program. Mr. Pappas emphasized that there had to be an overall account of the primary Local Self-Government for what it achieved during the previous four years.
Yiannis Karagiannis, Mayor of Souli, referred with intensity to the problem burning his Municipality: the TOEB Pediadas Paramythia with approximately 3,500 active members, has no electricity due to overcharging and the producers are at risk of seeing their properties destroyed for a fund of the order of 300,000 euros requested by DEDDIE in order to start the machines for TOEB to work. With his visit to Paramythia yesterday, the Prime Minister did not even touch on the issue despite the memos, noted Mr. Karagiannis. The Mayor of Nikolaou Skoufa Rozina Vavetsi also mentioned the same issue.
Nikos Georgakos, Mayor of Preveza referred to the lifeguard staff that cannot be easily recruited for the larger beaches, as well as the delays in the funding of the DEYA.
The Mayor of Konitsa, Nikos Exarchou, emphasized, among other things, that in order for the Municipality to do well, it needs staff and good administration. Regarding the issue of mobility, he requested that it be deleted, not to be in the vocabulary for small municipalities, as new employees cannot use locality as a criterion for their recruitment and leave with the trick of mobility, a few years after being hired. Finally, Giorgos Soukouvelos, Mayor of Zagori, argued that a program like “Tritsis” does not have funding for internal road construction.
Interventions at the meeting were made by Artaion municipal councilor from the opposition Vassiliki Ambelogianni, representative of the four OTA employee unions of the four Prefectures of Epirus and Christos Stefanou from the Association of Epirus Nurses.
The answers of the president of KEDE
Dimitris Papastergiou, chairman of the Board of Directors of KEDE answered many of the issues raised. He claimed that there is no news at all about the financing of the Ministry of Finance. The specific Ministry emphasized, continues to not understand the responsibilities of the Local Self-Government. The Ministry did not answer about the expenses from the increased cost of the Municipalities’ energy, we have no news about the 25 million euros of additional funding that the state has promised to the Municipalities, nothing has been done yet for DEYA, etc.
During the previous years, Mr. Papastergiou said, several things ran, but there were closed doors on three issues: the homeless, lifesaving and mobility.
Mr. Papastergiou referred to the basic provisions of the electoral law for municipal elections and agreed with the president of the PED Epirus that there needs to be clarifications in some provisions, such as the way of electing the president in communities of over 2000 inhabitants.
The president of KEDE also agreed with the president of the PED of Epirus on the road safety projects and the injustice that existed for the municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants by excluding them from the Recovery Fund.
On the big topic of the “Antonis Tritsis” program, Mr. Papastergiou expressed the uncertainty of how additional funds will be found to supplement the ceiling of most municipalities and noted that his proposal will be to the next government, that at least the projects that will to be proposed by the Municipalities themselves, who have not received the minimum funding ceiling. “There is a hope that additional money will be found,” he said, and spoke of some minimal additional money.
