Police to revamp car fleet

TO KEEP pace with the demands of modern crime prevention, the police are to receive 600 new vehicles by the year 2001, at a cost of £2 million.

The Finance Ministry has approved the new vehicles, mostly four-wheel drive, in response to the growing needs of upgrading police capabilities.

According to the four-year action plan, around 100 vehicles will be purchased this year and the remaining 500 over the next three years.

The spanking new Japanese vehicles will replace those that have suffered mechanical problems or have reached the eight-year limit of their usefulness.

It has also been decided that vehicles of lower horsepower should be scrapped from the force’s fleet altogether in favour of three types of transport vehicle, which will have four-wheel drive with engines of 1,600 and 2,000 horsepower.

Currently, the police car fleet consists of vehicles of varying horsepower, from 1,200 to 1,800; these will gradually be phased out as they are judged unsuitable for modern policing.

However, a 1996 government agreement with official car importers – which allows public service vehicles to be returned for the purchase price – could be under threat because their second-hand value has diminished as rival forecourts are flooded with cheap Japanese imports.

It is understood that new car dealers are pressing for this agreement to be abandoned, and the Auditor-general’s office has called on the government to renegotiate a deal for the new batch of vehicles.

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.