Traffic cameras ‘cannot be a means of tax collection’

MPs on Monday pushed back hard against a government request for the release of €146,000 for a software application matching ID cards with unpaid traffic fines at checkpoints. The House finance committee was discussing the Photo Radar List – software which the company in charge of traffic cameras says it has finished and is ready to deploy. The government wants the €146,000 to be released so that it can then pay the company for the software. Lawmakers heard that there are currently some 16,000 unpaid fines relating to Turkish Cypriot vehicles. Police want to use the software at crossing points between the north and south. But opposition MPs were having none of it.

Akel’s Andreas Pashiourtidis said that before they even consider okaying the funds, “someone has to come here and give us an appraisal as to what has been done until today, and explain why the fines are not being served, beyond the well-known reason that some shrewd individuals have learned the trick of not picking up the summons at post offices. ” He said the government was now trying to cover up its own inadequacies, “having left unserved 180,000 traffic fines over the past four years”. The 180,000 number refers to all unpaid fines – Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots and foreigners. According to the MP, the company in charge of the cameras system has a contractual obligation to attempt to serve a fine twice. Legislation on alternative ways to serve fines gathering dust At the same time, he said, legislation on alternative ways of serving fines has been gathering dust for four years. Now, all of a sudden, the government is in a hurry, Pashiourtidis commented. As far as his party is concerned, “we won’t take part in this game where the cameras have been turned into a means of tax collection”. The MP said that…