By a Staff Reporter
AROUND £3.2 million will be spent to remove asbestos roofs from government buildings, the House Environmental Committee heard yesterday.
According to the Communications Ministry representative Lefteris Stylianides, the amount does not include the removal of asbestos from military barracks and schools.
Education Ministry official Evangelia Georgiou said asbestos roofs would be removed from all schools by the end of the year while there was a separate plan for kindergartens, which provides either removing the roofs or housing the schools in other buildings by the end of 2004.
Stylianides told the committee that the total cost of removing the material would be £3.2 million, just for government buildings.
He said the delay in the removal programme, which started in 2002, was due to the lack of space to store the asbestos.
Green Party deputy George Perdikis charged that crews failed to take the necessary protective measures when removing the asbestos, not even putting up warning signs.
A representative from the labour inspection department, Tasoulla Kyprianidou-Leontidou, told the committee there were no specialist crews for the job, but noted that due to financial interests, many private companies did not bother informing people in the area or supplying the proper equipment for the protection of workers.
Leontidou said her department had, in many cases, had to stop work in order for the contractors to comply, but said some even worked at night to avoid checks from the authorities.
DIKO deputy Marios Matsakis wondered why asbestos sheets and pipes were still on the market, only to be told that regulations banning these products had been approved last year and had been due to come into force in January this year, though the necessary order from the Cabinet had not yet been issued.
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.
