The contractor for the now sunken Liopetri fish shelter and river development project hit back on Wednesday, calling the fracas ‘misinformation’ while it threatened legal action against the government.

In a lengthy statement, Lois Builders’ director Michalis Lois cited Lord Denning and Sir Michael Latham to say “cashflow is the lifeblood of the construction industry.”

He said the company will do everything it can to stop the case from devolving and stressed the town planning department should aim to do the same “so as to avoid increased construction costs, delays and resources from both sides spent in court fights”.

The reaction comes a day after the interior ministry announced it was terminating the project after 22 months of extensions failed to reap satisfactory results.

It specified that a year ago, the progress had been at 50 per cent and was now at 55 per cent.

Lois Builders however rejected this, saying there had been a 32 per cent increase in the project’s progress.
The contractor cited this as an example of the misinformation which was being spread over the project.

Lois said it was unprecedented that five months before the completion date the company received a termination notice.

The project was signed on during former President Nicos Anastasiades’ term, and MPs in the House agriculture committee a day earlier were quick to express concern over the frequency of projects scrapped due to problems.

Liopetri mayor Markos Koumis charged that if there were that many problems, the contract should have been terminated over the summer. He called for the project to go ahead and authorities to find suitable incentives to help hurry the project along.