Pafos Live 28 July 2023
Huge quantities of quarry materials are placed on the market illegally. According to the Cyprus Concrete Makers' Association, approximately 10% of the quantities of quarry materials are illegally marketed in Cyprus.
Illegal quarrying is carried out in isolated areas. A lot of money is also flowing in the field of recycling waste from excavations, demolitions and constructions, where once again illegality is rampant as well as black money, as according to the complaints of the Pancyprian Association of Concrete Makers, only very small quantities end up in licensed recycling units.
The President of the Association, Mr. Antonis Latouros, in a letter to the members of the Committee on Agriculture, denounces the of illegalities raging in the quarrying and recycling sector and denounces the fact that state services are unable to combat illegality.
Illegal quarrying
As Mr. Latouros mentions in his letter, illegal quarrying creates a series of serious problems such as:
1. Unfair competition since these quarries do not pay the legal fees per tonne, do not pay any rents and royalties, do not check for the quality of the materials produced, do not have the appropriate equipment and personnel, do not implement safety and health plans and do not deposit financial guarantees for the restoration of the environment.
The implementation of all the above involves significant costs for the members of the Pancyprian Association of Concrete Makers who operate legally but not for the illegal ones, Mr. Latouros stresses.
2. Placing inappropriate materials on the market has the potential to create safety problems in construction projects.
According to Mr. Latouros, the problem is timeless and due to the isolated areas in which illegal quarrying takes place, it is very difficult to deal with them with the existing mechanisms of the state. "In our view, the Mines Service should be properly staffed with the creation of offices in all districts instead of only in Nicosia to deal more effectively with the phenomenon," he said in his letter.
