OPPOSITION parties yesterday expressed shock that the Larnaca desalination unit had been inaugurated on Monday before the water was fit for human consumption.
Despite the official ceremony, attended by guest of honour Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, the plant won’t deliver any water to consumers for another two weeks, after chemical analyses revealed the boron content was twice the minimum recommended safety level.
AKEL chairman Demetris Christofias said the inauguration of a unit producing faulty water was “an attempt to hoodwink the people”.
Speaking of the glass of water handed to President Glafcos Clerides in the official inauguration, he said: “it’s not the damage from one glass of water, it’s the damage caused by actions outside the realms of ethics. The government had an obligation not to go ahead with the inauguration, given that the project had not been completed,” he said.
DIKO leader Tassos Papadopoulos was more measured in his criticism, but also puzzled by the train of events.
“It is somewhat strange that although the Ministry knew the water was unsuitable at least ten days beforehand, it did not announce this. Without this being a deadly sin, the function of the desalination unit is one thing and the inauguration another,” he said.
But the government yesterday brushed aside the matter, which yesterday erupted into a full-scale media frenzy.
Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous said AKEL must be running dry of arguments, in order to try and take advantage of a technical problem.
He said the problem did not affect the continuous supply of water to all households in Cyprus pledged by the government from last December 15.
At Monday’s inauguration the Minister and the President both hailed the Larnaca desalination unit as the answer to the nation’s water problem, ensuring there would be no more water cuts in Cyprus.
Government Spokesman Michalis Papapetrou was yesterday scathing about the opposition’s criticism.
“The logical conclusion is obvious and just because there are elections it doesn’t mean we have to divorce ourselves from logic. There was a contract with a contractor who undertook to complete a certain project. The job was completed. There remains an insignificant peripheral job before water is sent to the consumer. Plus, this issue cropped up because the government refused to accept the water with this aberration,” he said.
Politis newspaper broke the scandal in a front-page article on Tuesday that revealed the boron content in the water was double the minimum recommended safety level.
The Agricultural Ministry told the Cyprus Mail that the technicality would take two weeks to fix.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
