Filenews 23 June 2022 - by Dora Christodoulou
The smouldering rivalry between members of the Community Kouklia Authority for years seems to be behind the complaints about the discharges of aggregates into the Diarizos riverbed. Five members of the Community Council complained in writing in a letter to the competent Authorities of the Republic that a part of the Community Authority has allowed manifest illegalities to be committed in a protected area, while claiming that these members are obstructing efforts to take the case to the Police for further investigations. These complaints are rejected by the Mukhtar and the Secretary of the K.S. Kouklia, arguing that the complainants are motivated by their opposition to the return of the commune to his duties and to the personal confrontation of some of them with the Secretary.
The new exacerbation of passions in Kouklia, which had led a year ago to the temporary dismissal of the Mukhtar from his duties to which he recently returned, starts from the transfer of a large quantity of aggregates from the site of the construction site to Petra tou Romiou, where works are being carried out to stabilize the pavement, and place them in the riverbed of Diarizos.
In their complaint to the competent Water Department, which has also been notified to the Attorney General, the Auditor General, the Police and the competent ministries, the five of the Community Council state that the placement of aggregates concerns more than 500 trucks and claim that it was done in the presence of members of the Community Authority who claimed that the action had the approval of the Water Department.
They argue that a member of the Community Kouklia Authority had requested permission to place "clean" materials on the banks of the river for the purpose of protecting property from the phenomena of winter, but no such permission was given in writing by the competent department.
The five also complain that they would proceed with complaints to the Police for the lifting of the illegality, in retrospect, as they claim, the members in question are obstructing the adoption of such a decision of the Community Council, citing either a permit given by the Water Department, or incompetence of the Community Council to deal with the matter and stressing that illegalities in riverbeds are the responsibility of the said department and not of the Community Authority.
The complaint signed by the five members of the Kouklia Central Council is requested to proceed with the investigation of the case by the Police and to investigate in particular who gave permission for the disposal in Diarizos, instead of in a licensed unit, who supervised the whole process, whether private interests are served by this action and not the community good and whether some people benefited financially from the free disposal of the materials in the bed of Diarizos, instead of paying thousands of euros for their transfer to a special unit.
The positions of the members of the Community Authority who signed the letter, were rejected by the officials of the local authority named by them in the letter, speaking yesterday to "F". They attributed the move to their chronic opposition to the Mukhtar and the secretary of the K.S. Kouklia and pointed out that a year ago the approval of the Water Department had been requested for the placement of materials from the excavations in Petra tou Romiou in places outside Natura on the banks of Diarizos in order to protect properties of residents in the area from the flooding phenomena of winter seasons.
"This placement was then done outside the Natura area," they pointed out. "A few days ago, from the construction site of Petra tou Romiou, inert materials were transported by 20 trucks, which were deposited in the bed of Diarizos. And the man who carried them, after the noise that was caused, came and lifted them from the area."
Regarding the allegation of the five that some are deliberately delaying the reporting of the case to the Police, they said that the position of the Community Authority was clear that the matter falls within the jurisdictions of the Water Department and not the Community Council, which has no reason to intervene.
Ecologists' Movement: The picture is disheartening
The Movement of Ecologists-Citizens' Cooperation also made an intervention on the problem, an announcement of which points out that the works in Petra tou Romiou have been carried out for two years and the responsibility lies with the Department of Public Works. As he points out from the excavations, part of the material, instead of being transferred to licensed units for the management of aggregates, was placed in the riverbed of Diarizos, very close to the road leading to the community of Kouklia.
"Following a complaint received by the Movement of Ecologists, its members were in the area and described the image as disheartening," it says. "Not everyone can undisturbedly trample the bed of a river with all that that entails. There cannot be no control especially when it comes to projects done by the state itself."
The Movement called on the Department of Environment, the District Administration and the Water Department to intervene immediately for the restoration of the site.
