President of the Republic, Nicos Anastasiades announced from Limassol today new projects of €125 mn, while he intervened in the processes underway against the companies that admitted that they gave bribes.

Speaking after a meeting with the local authorities he started announcing the projects with “a project that the city and municipality of Limassol needed for years now, the stadium of three historical clubs, AEL, Apollon and Aris, which will cost at least €20 mn”.

“The licensing procedures are already at a mature stage and I believe that the foundation stone will be placed this year”, he noted.

Taking into account the sensitivities of the mayor and the city council of Limassol as well as the historicity of the stadium, all necessary improvements and maintenance of Tsirio Stadium will be made so that it can be used by the clubs of Limassol, the President said.

“Today, in addition to these, I am pleased to announce a number of new projects which will begin in 2015 or in 2016”, Mr. Anastasiades added.

"They are about mature projects and tenders must be invited. We have a problem though, a number of large construction firms are under investigation for allegedly committing various offenses.

I have instructed the justice minister to prepare legislation in order to clear up the whole issue so that those convicted of being involved or associated to be excluded. But when the Attorney General invites or encourages some companies to testify for the offenses to be substantiated against civil servants, this cannot be used to exclude companies" he said.

"Also, the supervisory and local authorities must ensure that the companies comply with the specifications of the tender to avoid phenomena of appealing to the revisionary authority and a possible exclusion of a perfectly capable company to undertake the project and thus delays in constructions due to procedures, appeals and others" he concluded.

The total cost of the new projects amounts to €124.7 mn.