The Potamos Liopetriou construction side will be restarted following the decision to terminate the employment of the contractor in November 2024, the interior ministry announced on Wednesday.

The company Lois Builders Ltd involved in the €8 million project, however, claims the contract has not been legally terminated and would therefore remain in force.

“The construction site is still under our possession, since the contract signed with the state has not been legally terminated and therefore remains in force,” the company said, adding it had reported the “incident” to the police.

This runs counter to the ministry’s statement on the issue.

“In relation to the project to develop the fishing shelter and the Liopetri river, it is recalled that the Department of Town Planning and Housing terminated the employment of the engineer and the contractor of the project in November 2024, due to the long delays in the execution of the project and the failure to comply with their contractual obligations,” the ministry said.

Stressing that it was “taking appropriate action to this end, within the framework of legality and in consultation with its legal advisor”, the ministry said it remained committed to the execution of the project.

New plans to restart the works see an estimated completion of the area by June 2025. The Potamos Liopetriou area has since been sealed off by the department.

Lois Builders Ltd in a statement referred to an incident on Saturday morning, claiming that five unknown individuals from the department supposedly “executing orders from superiors entered the construction site of the Liopetri river and removed part of the fence, throwing the materials into an adjacent area.”

After an almost two-year delay, the government had announced the termination of the Liopetri river and fishing shelter project in November 2024.

The ministry had argued that despite 22 months of extensions, progress on the project had been extremely slow, with only five per cent progress between 2023 and 2024.

The project remained only 55 per cent completed before the ministry announced the scrapping of the project.