Construction contractor Cyfield owner Kyriakos Chrysochos on Wednesday denied reports that his company had requested a 17-and-a-half-year extension to the time allotted for the Nicosia ring road’s construction.
Speaking to CyBC radio, he said reports of such a request were “jokes”, and that the only extension to be requested was until June 16 this year and had been approved by the Committee on Changes and Claims.
He added that he is sure the ring road will be complete before August.
Asked about the reports of a 17-and-a-half-year extension, he said “I cannot know what different government departments wrote between each other, but I know what my company requested.”
He added that his company had requested a “reasonable” extension, and said the time required for the ring road to be completed “will be very short”.
“This whole ’17 years’ thing is funny. Really funny,” he added.
He went on to criticise the “bureaucratic procedures” which are present in the contract, saying “there are projects which could have been completed in half the time allowed by the contract, but which are not finished because of red tape.”
For this reason, he said, his company is “thinking of not making another offer to carry out a public project again because of this situation.”
He added that if the tender process and the contracts signed by the public works department are not modernised, “in the end, there will be no Cypriot companies interested in carrying out public works.”
“We are very concerned about this. All the companies which work with the public sector lose money,” he said, adding that payments are often made late “due to bureaucratic procedures”.
“You do realise these hard times we have been through and how important it is to not get paid for your time. Many times, it is six months before we get paid for the work we do,” he said.
Chrysochos’ statements contradict reports which first appeared in Phileleftheros on Wednesday.
The newspaper had claimed Cyfield had requested a 6,363-day extension to the project, which would have pushed back the expected date of completion from the initially agreed date of March 23, 2023, to sometime in 2040.
They said the extension requests had added up to 17 and a half years after Cyfield had submitted several smaller requests for extensions for various hindrances which occurred along the way.
Those requests reportedly included for things such as the construction site not being ready in time, for overhead electricity pylons not having been moved, and for issues related to rainwater drainage on the road’s central reservation.
The contract for the ring road’s construction is reportedly worth upwards of €60 million plus VAT.
The Committee on Changes and Claims has the right to impose a fine of €5,500 per day on the contractor for unjustified delays. Theoretically, therefore, they will be able to levy that fine every day after June 16 should the ring road not be complete by then.
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