The Famagusta district governor warned that his district office (EOA) would return to filing building permits on paper, due to the inefficiency of the online system on Friday.
The deputy mayor of innovation and the head of the technical chamber (Etek) meanwhile said the so-called “Ippodamos” system was not yet perfected but was poised to usher in huge improvements and a return to paper was not feasible.
All EOA heads are set to meet on Friday to discuss the issue and see if any joint decisions are to be taken.
The online submission system is currently not functional, it is slow and goes down for extended lengths of time, and as a remedy the district EOA had taken the decision to temporarily return to paper, Famagusta governor and ex-minister Yiannis Karousos told the CyBC.
“As of Monday the submission of applications [in Famagusta] will only be done through a physical envelope,” Karousos said.
“When the deputy ministry [of innovation] solves [its] problems and delivers a functional and productive system, we will return [to it],” he said.
Head of the planning department Kyriacos Koundouros, speaking on the same programme, however, said that should the Famagusta office stop using the online system it would impact his department’s functioning. The planning department currently uses both systems but is phasing out the paperwork, he said.
According to the official the applications through the online system are proceeding smoothly, as evidenced by the fact that from the first of July until the end of October, over 4,000 applications had been submitted, of which and 3,300 (over 80 per cent) has been approved, Koundouros said.
Deputy Minister of Innvovation Nicodemos Damianou, for his part, said the assessment by the planning department was valid and that beyond the matter of applications the Ippodamos system had successfully digitised proceedings “to a large extent”.
“Month by month the number of applications successfully processed are doubling,” he said.
The system’s response time and interruptions are being resolved, he said, and only one function is slow. The connection with the land registry department has also been upgraded and is now faster.
User features are also being improved in an ongoing fashion based on input, Damainou added.
“We have plans for changes to make the system more user-friendly based upon suggestions provided by the EOA’s,” he said.
Head of Etek Constantinos Constanti said under no circumstances should there be “a regression to third-world paperwork process.”
“Things should have been done much better, including the timelines provided for digitisation and pilot programmes but we must see how we can improve henceforth,” he said.
