NICOSIA MUNICIPALITY residents will not have to pay extortionate amounts for the construction of new town drains, Nicosia Mayor Eleni Mavrou said yesterday.

“People are not going to pay €20,000 to have new drains constructed on their street,” she said.

Mavrou was speaking at a news conference following a municipal council meeting with Interior Minister Neoclis Sylikiotis to address the issue on Friday night.

Her statements were made to allay residents’ fears following the recent publication of the project’s preliminary cost and charges from some quarters about the amount residents would have to pay. According to the initial budget some townsfolk would have to fork out €20,000 to have a new drainage system set up in their area.

But this was only a preliminary budget and in “no way” mirrored the actual, final costs, said Mavrou.

“The final costs will be in a year’s time and will be much, much lower. Already the municipality has said it will cover 20 per cent of the project and the government will cover 30 per cent,” she said.

People who thought they would have to pay €20,000 would only pay as much as €7,000 in total, she said.

Other residents who had been quoted figures as high as €12,000 for the project would pay no more than €2,500, she added.

Mavrou said the project included drains and pavements and would start in June this year. She said pavements, by law, were paid for by each resident but that the cost of the drains, which ran into the tens of millions, would be shared out between the municipality, the state and town residents.

“This is a social project,” she said. “Pavements will allow residents to move around safely, including people with mobility problems and children. It will allow people to enjoy the town.”

Mavrou said the issue of creating a drainage system had been faced by the municipality for 20 years but due to the exorbitant cost had repeatedly been put off.

“This too is social project that is about residents’ safety and the safety of their property following the serious floods we’ve experienced recently,” she said.