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.

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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 initially authorities had wanted to use the Photo Radar List everywhere – including at airports and harbours. But later they dropped that facet, due to Schengen zone considerations.

“Next they wanted to use it at the crossing points and at police stations, and today they tell us that the company has already finished the software, limiting the serving of the fines to Turkish Cypriots, without yet explaining to us how they are currently unable to serve the fines to Turkish Cypriots.”

Contacted by the Cyprus Mail, the Akel MP said that during an earlier meeting discussing the same issue, police told them they could track Greek Cypriots with unpaid fines at crossing points.

“If they can identify Greek Cypriots in their vehicles, and without this new software, why can’t they do the same for Turkish Cypriots?

“We got no clear answers today.”

MP blasts ‘outrageous cost’

The €146,000 was included in the 2026 state budget, but in passing the budget bill MPs had ‘crossed’ this particular item – meaning they approved it conditionally, subject to the government later coming to parliament to justify its release.

The police had tried to get the amount released in May this year, but MPs said no.

Meanwhile another MP, Andreas Laouris of Direct Democracy, highlighted the price tag of the software, calling it “outrageous”.

Laouris said that, as a computer programmer himself, developing this type of software should cost a few hundred euro – not the €146,000 the government promised to pay the company.

“This is simply software that lets two databases ‘talk’ to each other, matching an individual and their ID number to a pending fine.”

The House finance committee will continue discussing the issue next week.