NICOSIA Municipality has filed a lawsuit against the surveyor, civil engineers and building contractor in charge of the €6-million renovation of the Municipal Theatre, the roof of which collapsed on to an empty auditorium in 2008.
Attorney-general Petros Clerides ruled previously that there was no criminal responsibility, leaving the municipality no option but to pursue a civil suit.
The write is against the architectural surveyor, civil engineers and the contractor who were commissioned to complete the refurbishment following a fact finding report into the causes of the collapsed roof, which the Municipality hopes will reveal negligence on the part of the developers.
The Municipality hopes to receive around €3 million in compensation, which will be used to repair the damage caused when the roof’s steel substructure buckled under the weight of new fittings.
The court’s decision will partly depend on a close examination of the fact finding report, which details the technical causes rather than culpability for the incident. It concluded that “the steel structure’s resistance, on which the roof was placed, was not evaluated correctly”.
In spite of the report’s findings, it seems that the blame could partly lie with previous municipal authorities. According to informed Municipal sources, who wished to remain anonymous, the mismanagement of the project dates back to former Mayor Lellos Demetriades’ administration.
They said the municipality did not hire an expert to carry out a structural integrity assessment of the roof when they first saw plaster flaking off the ceiling. This is standard practice when structures about to undergo renovations. This oversight was repeated by Mavrou’s predecessor, Michalakis Zampelas.
Zampelas assigned the architectural study to the company of Pefkios Georgiades, the late Education Minister, without inviting tenders, and then hired a relative to conduct the quantity surveying. The actual renovation works were undertaken by the A Panayides Company.
The renovation of the theatre lasted two and half years before the roof caved in on an empty auditorium on June 11, 2008, just one night before it was booked for a schoolchildren’s play. The theatre has 1,200 seats, most of which would have been filled by children, families and teachers.
