The bill was tabled by Harris Georgiades, Onoufrios Koulla and Savia Orphanidou, on behalf of the Democratic Unionist parliamentary group, and Christiana Erotokritou and Chrysis Pantelidis, on behalf of the Democratic Party parliamentary group.
Speaking at the committee meeting, one of the proposers of the motion, MP Harris Georgiades, said that in 2013 a control procedure was established, according to which the existence of a position in the budget should not automatically imply that it must be filled and that the state should have a mechanism to assess the vacancies that have arisen, when they will be filled and the extent to which they will be filled.
He said that with this process, each position would have to be evaluated by the personnel department of the Ministry of Finance, secure the approval of the Council of Ministers thereafter and finally the approval of Parliament.
He also indicated that in 2017 there was a variation of this regulation and the vetting process for recruitment (first appointment positions) was left indefinitely and it was considered that there was no need for promotion positions to go through this process, adding that Parliament introduced a regulation "reserving for itself the right to approve promotion positions as well".
Georgiades said this regulation "serves no particular purpose" and is "an unnecessary bureaucracy" and added that "the proposed law is strictly and clearly limited to promotions".
"DISY's position is that we would in no way agree to the abolition of the control procedure for recruitment," he said, adding that if the control procedure for recruitment were abolished today, "in 2022, which among other things is also an election period, there would be a few thousand recruitments in all the vacancies that exist in the admission scale."
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance said that the Ministry of Finance did not agree with the isolated treatment of the issue, noting that it should include all posts and not just promotion posts.
"It does not make sense to defrost only promotion posts," he added.
The NYS and the Education Service agreed with the proposal, while the trade unions called for the bill to cover all posts and not just promotion posts and called on MPs to respect the agreement made on 28 April 2022 with the Finance Minister to completely remove the procedures for defrosting posts, as was the case until 2013 in the public and wider public sector.
They also stated that there is the process of approving the budgets of each agency through which the filling of posts is approved and added that with the current need to go through Parliament again to approve the filling of posts which were initially approved through the budget of each agency or department, there is a long delay resulting in agencies resorting to the purchase of services.
In statements after the session, Finance Committee Chairwoman Christiana Erotokritou said that the proposed law excludes from the approval process by the Finance Committee "the promotion posts as they are non-essential posts which are needed for the proper functioning of the departments".
"Promotional posts should be able to be filled more easily and more quickly without bureaucratic procedures," he said, adding that "any approval of the bill would help the civil service to operate more quickly and efficiently and would relieve the Finance Commission of work it currently has to perform, wasting valuable time and resources that could be used for other purposes."
DISY MP Onoufrios Koulla expressed DISY's satisfaction that the proposed law "enjoys broader support" and added that this process only added to delays and bureaucracy."
In relation to reports of a complete removal of controls on public sector recruitment, Mr. Kulla expressed DISY's "disagreement and deep concern" and added that "control over fiscal policy is essentially lost and we may go back to the old ways, namely the uncontrolled expansion of the public sector and the benefits that have accrued over the last ten years by reducing and restraining public sector employment may be lost."
AKEL MP Andreas Kavkalias said that the debate on the procedure followed in filling promotion vacancies was rightly opened and added that "the existing legislation which provides that the competent authority submits a request directly to the Finance Committee should be re-evaluated because we believe that the procedure has not worked effectively in the way it is currently done."
He said that AKEL will study the proposed law and submit its final position at the next meeting of the committee.
With regard to the agreement reached by the Ministry of Finance with the social partners on the complete removal of any restrictions for all positions, Mr Kafkalias said that this is being taken into account by AKEL and will be examined on the basis of the criteria concerning the efficient functioning of the civil service, the formation of more efficient procedures and the protection of labour rights, together with the market for services, which in practice has wrongly proved to be the government's favourite, as he said, "choice of CNA
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