QUESTIONS and criticism have come in the wake of a House Communications Committee announcement that construction on the Paphos-Polis highway will begin in eight to ten months at a total cost of £240 million.
Whether or not to construct a new Paphos-Polis highway has been debated for years now, with critics arguing that the costs – whether economic or environmental –are too high, and proponents claiming that the highway is necessary both to save lives as well as to promote economic development in the island’s west.
Green Party Head George Perdikis told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that the plan to build a new highway was “wrong” and would “destroy the environment and hurt the economy,” claiming that the £240 million to be spent on the road could go to much better causes.
“With half the money they could build a very good road that would serve the communities and the area,” Perdikis said, adding that the Environmental Services conducted an environmental study to examine the feasibility of repairing the old road, which would in some places be two lanes and in others four.
The planned highway will take a different route than the old one – like the relatively new Limassol-Paphos road which runs parallel to the old coastal route – and would therefore mean tarring over a long swath of land, thereby disrupting the area’s eco-systems.
The Green Party Head said financial interests lay behind the government’s decision to construct a new highway rather than repair the old one.
“When you ask who those people are who make the roads in Cyprus, then you will find out why they decided to build a new highway. The five richest men in Cyprus each have a firm that constructs roads.”
Economist Costas Apostolides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that whether or not the project makes economic sense depends on “how the repayment will be made… on how they are raising the money”.
Apostolides said that originally the government was going to count the number of automobiles using the road and then pay the company according to the number of traffic in a sort of toll system, but then they put that aside and decided they would repay the company over a period of years.
“Originally the consultants that came in found that the project was viable, but since then the cost has gone up a lot,” Apostolides said, adding that such changes necessitate a new economic study.
According to Apostolides, it is possible that the higher fuel prices could make the plan more viable today than it was five years ago because the wage and salary increases would result in “savings in fuel and time [to drivers] that are much higher than before.”
Economics aside, there is also the issue of safety, and most agree that something – whether a repair of the old road or construction of a new one – needs to be done.
“The road is absolutely horrific, and if we can save some lives, then it’s worth it,” Apostolides said.
