Fifteen blind people in Cyprus have been left without their monthly state grant after the processing of new applications was frozen last September, the Pancyprian Organisation of the Blind has warned.
The organisation said the €382-a-month grant — in place since 1996 — had effectively been suspended for newly blind applicants, and called on the House of Representatives to reject legislation that would abolish it altogether.
In an announcement, the organisation said abolishing the grant would save the government €8 million in the short term, but argued the money would be redirected to benefits for people “without serious disabilities,” while the island’s 2,050 blind residents would be gradually phased out of support.
“The government will send the message that our country is the first in the world where, as if by miracle, blind people have disappeared,” it said.
The organisation also said that since last September, blind people had been stripped of a special 19% household electricity discount, which it said violated EU regulation — a further blow, it added, amid the high cost of living.
It warned that blind people were being pushed back into the conditions of poverty that prevailed before 1990, when the government of the day replaced tax reliefs with the dedicated blind grant now under threat.
The new legislation, it said, contained downgraded provisions compared to existing law, “targeting in particular people without sight, one of the most serious disabilities.”
“These are consequences of absolute exclusion,” the announcement said, urging the House to weigh the impact on all 2,050 blind Cypriots before voting.
As a first response, the organisation said it was planning a demonstration outside the Presidential Palace, where it would make clear its members’ determination to live with dignity and claim an equal place in Cypriot society.