Ex-presidential representative Kudret Ozersay, via his social media organisation ‘Toplaraniyoruz’, has called Nicosia council to stop spending money on advertising the elections and instead rent refuse trucks, buy bin bags and gloves and clean up the city.
He added that everyone was familiar with the candidates and the money spent on media campaigns would be better spent on cleaning up Nicosia.
Nicosia council workers have not yet received salaries this year as council coffers still remain empty.
Last November, there had been the proposal of a TL 90 million loan to Nicosia council from Ziraat Bank, however, when it finally came around to voting for the loan, there were not enough councillors to form a quorum to vote since over half the councillors had resigned. The resignations were in protest against the government taking a tough line with them over the protracted council workers’ strike last year.
This January, a former head of the Association of Banks said that a loan this size would be illegal in any case and the that the maximum amount that Ziraat could lend was TL 45 million unless banking laws were changed.
The problems within the council cannot now be formally addressed until after the council elections on April 7th.
