MPs on Thursday called for Auditor-General Andreas Papaconstantinou to intervene on the matter of smart bus stops, with some quarters having alleged that they have been erected the wrong way around.

Akel MP Costas Costa led the charge at the day’s House transport committee meeting, saying the placement of the pillar at one end of the stops causes “limited visibility”, while also alleging that the final construction “differs from the design plans”.

The pillar is placed on the right hand side of the bus stop as one faces the road, thus between those at the stop and traffic.

Papaconstantinou said the Audit Office has received a complaint on the matter, which dates back to August last year, and that he had requested information on the matter from the transport ministry in January.

That information, he said, was forwarded to the Audit Office last week. It will now be studied, with questions set to be sent back to the relevant authorities in due course.

Costa described the matter as a “huge scandal”, adding that he was “surprised to see stops which are incredibly small, with a bench which can barely accommodate one and a half people, and a pillar which demonstrably does not allow would-be passengers to be seen from the bus or to see the bus”.

He then critiqued “excuses which have been given to date” by Transport Minister Alexis Vafeades, saying they “do not hold water”, before asking if the ministry had questioned why the company which won the tender for the stops’ erection had offered to do it for €5 million cheaper than the second-cheapest bid.

He also said that of the 1,000 planned new bus stops, only 180 have been installed thus far.

“I believe what we are seeing is eye-catching and whatever excuses we hear, neither the shelter nor the bench is going to get any bigger,” he said, calling for an investigation to be launched into the matter.

Public works department chief engineer Aristotelis Savva defended the government’s record, saying the tender foresees what has been implemented to date, and also defending the stops’ design.

“The design takes into account the particularities of the road network in Cyprus in terms of limiting the with and length of the footpath on the side of the road and meeting the space requirements for accessibility,” he said.

He added that three different shelter sizes have been created, and which one is installed depends on the size of the pavement next to any given road.

Thus far, he added, only the smallest size of shelters have been installed, with larger shelters set to begin being installed from next month.

On the matter of the pillar, he said it is a “common reference point at all stops” and contains all the equipment the bus stop has.

He added that it was correctly installed, and that similar systems in the same orientation exist in London, Edinburgh and Manchester in the United Kingdom, as well as in cities in Spain and in Poland.

“The pillar goes where the bus should stop for people to board and the shelter follows. If the bench with the shelter came first, people would get off through the back door and into the shelter,” he said, with this eventuality meaning that people would be getting off buses and walking straight into the place where people would be waiting to get on.

“With the shelter the way it is, passengers’ exits are not obstructed, and protection is provided against collisions, and thus the feeling of safety is increased,” he said.

Asked about the matter of visibility, he said passengers are visible from the bus while sat at the stops and added that drivers typically approach bus stops at slow speeds.

On the question of the discrepancy in price between the winning tender and the next cheapest option, he said the government had initially set the project’s budget at €35 million and that the winning tender was for a €36.7m project, while the next-cheapest was a €42.1m bid.

This discrepancy, he said, came about as the tender winner already has facilities to construct the stops, while other bidders would have had to create those facilities after winning the tender.

That aside, he said, “the cost of the stops themselves was approximately the same”.

Accountant-General Andreas Antoniades also said that it was not the case that the winning tender offer was “unusually low” and added that all procedures were carried out “in compliance with the legislation”.

The project’s designer Nikolas Demades said his company had “provided several plans” for the bus stops in 2019, but that “due to repeated requests for redesigns, the process took three years”.

He added that since the contractor began implementing the project, only one type of stop has been installed, and said that this fact “creates confusion” as people believe that all stops will resemble those which have been installed thus far.

He also said that no electronic information screens or solar panels have yet been installed in any of the existing stops.

“We feel that we are being targeted because they are blaming the design, while we carried out a huge project,” he said.

He went on to say that the designer was supposed to carry out checks on 10 samples of stops created by the manufacturer, but that he has only been able to check one sample to date.

On this matter, he said “aesthetic changes” to the designs have been made, and that as such, “we feel disconnected from the implementation, we want to be involved so the process is done correctly”.

He said that his firm had “reacted” to the changes, but that he had been informed that the contractor “is entitled to do it” within the framework of the tender.

He added that changes to the structure may negatively impact “the strength” of the structures, as well as the cost.

Savva responded to this, saying that the changes made were allowed by the regulation governing the tender, and that a static study was conducted into the matter and checked by a second auditor.

Despite Savva’s assurances, MPs were less than convinced, with Disy MP Demetris Demetriou saying Papaconstantinou has “work to do”.

Fellow Disy MP Nikos Sykas told Savva that “you have failed” and added that “someone is stealing” in the matter.

Costa, too, was scathing, saying, “I regret to note that with what I have heard, I am now certain that this is a huge scandal worth tens of millions”.

“Today we discovered other things and we really saw the size of the problem and the size of this scandal. We have honestly managed as a state once again, instead of doing a project which the whole of society was waiting for, to do a project in the dark again,” he said.

Diko MP Christos Orphanides said there is “no light at the end of the tunnel over when the stops will function” as smart bus stops.

“Personally, I intend to submit it to the European Union, because the programme is co-financed, so that they can investigate it in the EU and inform us where the specific amounts have gone and what procedures were undertaken, and whether they were within the legal framework,” he said.

Vafeades had defended the stops himself last month, saying that the pillar  is not so wide that people would ordinarily not be able to see the bus, saying, “the width of this pillar allows for visibility for both passengers and drivers.

“It may not be ideal for able-bodied passengers, but we must accept that we have to make a small concession to accommodate blind people,” he said.

He added that the pillar “protects waiting passengers from possibly being hit by a car”, but did not rule out a redesign should it be demanded, saying the concept is being constantly developed.

“The stops will evolve; they will not stay as they are for ever. We want to develop them into a multi-use tool. In the future, we want to add free WiFi, there will be information about what is happening in the area, free drinking water. We want to evolve them into a hub, a space which will provide services to people,” he said.