The municipal minority’s serious legal and substantive reservations regarding the emergency procedure and direct negotiation process chosen by the municipal government for the majorisland’s major water supply project.
In order to ensure that citizens are fully and objectively informed, the Kythera.News publishes, verbatim, the text of the statement sent by Mr. Anargyros Sofios to the secretariat and the members of the Municipal Committee:
«Regarding the first issue and in order for the Committee members to form the most accurate opinion possible, we are sharing our faction’s reservations, following an initial consultation with our legal advisors:
We understand that a small municipality with limited financial resources may operate at the limits of legality in order to secure funding for projects it would otherwise be unable to carry out. However, the use of emergency procedures and direct awards—when a. they are applied as a rule rather than as an exception, and b. is not fully substantiated, restricts competition and violates the principles of transparency and equal treatment, with a serious risk that the contract will not be signed.
With regard to the proposed project, while the 2025 fire is undoubtedly an «unforeseeable» situation, we question whether it will indeed be proven that the «absolutely necessary» and «urgent» criteria required by law still apply. And this is because:
The Municipality had many months at its disposal to organize a regular competitive bidding process, and according to the established case law of the Fifth Fifth Chamber of the Court of Auditors, the passage of a significant amount of time permits the use of standard or expedited competitive bidding procedures rather than the exceptional emergency procedure.
The communities of Mylopotamos and Logothetianika are missing from the list of affected communities; the 2025 fire caused the most severe damage to the water supply networks water supply networks, an omission that may suggest that the link between the interconnection project and the resolution of emergency situations is, at least in part, a pretext, and that in essence the project is intended to address a long-standing need of the water supply system of the Municipality of Kythira, for which the standard procedure should have been followed.
The relevant inclusion of the project «Interconnection Networks, etc.» in the Ministry of Environment and Energy’s Operational Program took place in the summer of 2024, that is, one year before the fire, and therefore the claim that the study was prepared to address this—admittedly unforeseeable—need is called into question.
»Sincerely, Sofios Anargyros"
Kythera.News, in accordance with journalistic ethics, remains open to publishing the official response from the Municipal Authority or the Municipal Committee regarding the three specific points raised by the minority, should such a response be issued.
