THE NEW traffic camera system is not expected to be operational for another two years, the Communications and Works Minister said yesterday.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Sophocles Sophocleous announced that since the cameras started operating last October, 107,000 offences were recorded amounting to around £2 million in fines. He added that 95 per cent of the fines had been settled.
Sophocleous added there had been a 15 to 20 per cent reduction in traffic accidents since the cameras were installed.
Attending the related discussion during yesterday’s House Communications Committee, Communications Minister Erato Malaktou-Pamballi said the government had decided to end its contract with the provider company and proceedings had already begun to prepare a new contract with new conditions that would ensure the introduction of an improved traffic camera system.
She added that though a tender will be opened in three months, the system will not be up and running until the end of 2009.
According to Pamballi, the state of Cyprus was covered by the contract signed with the company that provided the cameras.
“This contact was for 6.5 million euro and the Cyprus Republic paid only £150,000, which was a bank guarantee with the company being subject to confiscation,” she explained.
Reports claiming the company would be suing the government were played down by the minister.
“Any contract that is ended by one side is naturally going to provoke reactions,” she told reporters after the meeting, adding that the company had the right to take the case to court.
“We have acted based on the advice of our legal advisers and in a way that, in our opinion, secured the Republic’s constitutional rights,” said Pamballi. “It was not an easy decision to take the cameras down and I admit that,” she added.
Sophocleous and the police expressed their satisfaction over the effectiveness of the cameras.
“In the meantime, the police are trying to find the man power to make up for the loss of the traffic cameras,” he told police.
Committee Chairman, DIKO’s Zacharias Koulias said after the meeting that he was satisfied with the explanations given as to why the cameras had been brought down.
“The state was right to act the way it did,” he told reporters. “Our position as a committee is that we had differences with the company, which did not comply with the conditions and so should go and we should bring someone else.”
