The Turkish Cypriot Famagusta municipality on Wednesday announced it had issued a total of five fines for drivers of sewage tankers which had been caught dumping raw sewage at the town’s rubbish tip.
All five tanker drivers were fined 33,926TL (€917) each for their crimes.
Famagusta neighbourhood police manager Harun Oza said of the fines that “public health is more important than anything else and human health must not be put at risk”.
Wednesday’s announcement is the latest in a smattering of instances of sewage tankers being caught dumping raw sewage in the wrong place.
In May, the Turkish Cypriot Trikomo municipality said it had found two tankers tasked with transporting sewage from Trikomo to Famagusta to be dumping raw sewage onto roadsides in the area.
The tankers both belonged to the came company. The company was handed a 204,420TL (€5,850 at the time) fine for its crimes.
Vacuum tankers are required to transport sewage away from Trikomo as the village’s sewage system is currently insufficient to deal with its population, owing to the rapid rate of construction in the area in recent years.
Each vacuum tanker trip costs the Trikomo taxpayer between 2,000TL (€53) and 3,500TL (€92), depending on the size of the tanker.
Plans are afoot to bring Trikomo’s sewage system up to the required standards and capacity to deal with its burgeoning population, but they are said to cost a total of €25 million.
