By Jennie Matthew
THE controversy over emissions from the Nemitsas foundry struck back with a vengeance this week, when Minister of Commerce Nicos Rolandis publicly congratulated the factory on the same day as three children went home sick because the fumes were so bad.
The Minister toured the foundry accompanied by television cameras and journalists on Monday, exactly one week before a report on a suspected link between residents’ ill health and the factory is due to be submitted to Health Minister Frixos Savvides.
Savvides has promised to shut the factory if the report concludes that there is a link between health problems and the foundry’s emissions.
But Rolandis praised the industrial output of Nemitsas, which exports 80 per cent of its production, worth up to £4 million a year.
” The Nemitsas foundry constitutes a very important industrial unit for Cyprus, given its exporting potential,” said Rolandis.
He praised the company’s initiative in spending £100,000 to upgrade its filtration system in an effort to cut emissions, which he said were now satisfactory.
” I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the company for its initiative and I wish it every success in its future operations,” he said.
But on the same morning, three children at the Omonia Primary School telephoned their parents asking to be collected because they felt ill.
This year, just 250 pupils registered at the school, compared to 416 six years ago.
Pupil numbers have dwindled steadily ever since, but the biggest drop was between this June and September.
Sixty-nine fewer pupils enrolled at the school the summer after British scientists carried out tests that many hope will prove decisive in ending their misery.
The entire teaching staff requested a transfer last year. All but three, including the head and deputy head, got it.
Of the three remaining staff, two have reportedly already asked to be relocated.
” And this is normal. There is no continuity of teaching. People believe nothing’s going to be done about it [the foundry] and they’re not prepared to risk their children for another year,” said one parent.
The parents’ association of the Omonia primary school issued a statement on Monday night denouncing the Minister’s visit.
” It seems that its been arranged for him to come and endorse the foundry’s operations at a time when we’re waiting for the report. I mean, why does he come now? Of course Nemitsas was one of his predecessors (as minister)…” the parent added.
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.
