EFFORTS to furnish the new Finance Ministry on Byron Avenue are expected to cause chaos over the next few months, with extensive road works already paralysing the area, reports said yesterday.
Traffic congestion will block roads in front of and around the new building site by mid-February, when workmen undertake to furnish all services and departments belonging to the ministry, Politis said.
The settlement of management services within the new ministry building has already begun, and by the end of February the general accounts department, customs department, VAT services, clerical services and statistics department are all expected to be moved from the old building to the new one. In other words, around 1,200 people in as many cars will be moving to and from the area during morning and lunchtime hours, the paper said. This would lead to havoc during rush hour, particularly as road works carried out on Byron Avenue have not yet been completed.
The question that remains is how the area’s small roads will cope with all this additional traffic. Politis said officials had warned the road works were nowhere near finished, due to bad planning and organisation, and that it would still take many months to end the project to widen the area’s main road. In turn, traffic congestion will not only fail to improve, but will worsen drastically.
The Finance Ministry building, which cost £17 million to build, has been ready since last May, but remained closed after a mix up concerning its furnishing, which was not ordered in time. Fixtures and fittings have only now started to arrive at the new ministry. In fact, a number of civil servants are being forced to use furniture from the old ministry in order to carry out their duties, the paper said.
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.
