The KtiZO plan, which involves the reconstruction of 43 hazardous apartment buildings in refugee settlements and the maintenance of at least 70 more apartment buildings at a later stage, has disrupted plans to build two ministries in the Archigrammateia area of Nicosia, where parts of the Ministry of Interior currently operate.
Responding to comments by the leader of the EDEK party, Marinos Sizopoulos, regarding the need to construct new government offices in order to avoid annual expenditures of tens of millions of euros on office space rentals, Interior Minister Konstantinos Ioannou initially stated that the government’s intention was to construct privately owned buildings or even purchase new buildings.
Specifically, he mentioned that the purchase of the former Popular Bank building at the entrance of Nicosia had been initiated.
As for the construction of new buildings, he stated that the plans for the construction of two ministries (Interior and Transport) in the Archigrammateia area (opposite the PASIDY Hill, where the new Parliament building is also planned) did not progress because the need to demolish apartment buildings in government housing estates and construct new apartment buildings arose.
We chose to implement a social policy by providing housing for refugees residing in apartment buildings that were deemed unsafe and to postpone the construction of the ministries for a later stage, Mr. Ioannou said.
