BRS meeting with
Government: 4 August 2009
Stephen day and Colin
Mulcahy met with the Minister of Finance, the Undersecretary in
charge of Immigration and the Head of the Immigration Department
with other officials on Tuesday morning.
They described the serious
difficulties expatriates were having in renewing their residence
permits and asked what the Government intended to do. Various ideas
for coping with the problem were put forward, most of which seemed
to be “too difficult”
The Government side said
they would be introducing an electronic queueing system, similar to
that used in banks inside the building. They will also provide a
waiting room with seating. The Minister of Finance had authorised
the expenditure and we were told both changes would be in effect in
two weeks. Two of the counter staff have been replaced with English
speakers, and a liaison officer for the BRS appointed in the
Immigration Department We welcomed these gestures but pressed to
know what would be done to cope with the large numbers of
applicants. Unfortunately, no further improvements were on offer.
We asked about the rumours
that there were concessions for over 60s and were assured there were
none. We were told that the Government was considering ways to ease
the burden of annual renewal of temporary residence. We were also
told that permanent residents might face checks in future, say at 2
yearly intervals to see if, for instance, they had acquired criminal
records of had left the country.
On property, we asked what
the Government would do about speeding up the process of granting
permission to purchase. We were told they had been working hard on
the backlog and now had 950 cases ready to go to the Council of
Ministers for approval. We emphasised how important the good
management of property issues is for the reputation of the TRNC
abroad, and the huge amount of tax to be taken from a clearing of
the backlog
We also asked for
clarification on the buying of Turkish title property by
expatriates. We were told that the “legal position had not changed”,
and could extract nothing more.
We have a lot more
questions and issues for the Government: we will follow up with
letters and more meetings. There is at least a willingness to meet
and to listen
