Cabinet proposes three-member committee to examine Takata airbags issue

The Cabinet has adopted a proposal to appoint a three-member investigative committee to examine issues not covered by the administrative investigation already conducted on the defective Takata airbags.

Minister of Transport, Communications, and Works, Alexis Vafeades said after the Cabinet meeting that the recommendation of the Legal Service to appoint a three-member committee was essentially adopted, and following this development, he will proceed to define the terms of reference and will return next week with a proposal for the names that will comprise it.

Regarding the issue of dealer charges for certain services they offer in relation to the recall and replacement of airbags, the Minister underlined that after investigations, it became clear that there is no legislation allowing them to issue a decree that limits the charging of administrative costs or any other costs not included in the recall and the handling of the recall by the dealers.

"And for this reason, we will not issue a decree, instead we encourage and call on the distributors to avoid the charges. This issue is serious for the government, the distributors must participate in the effort of the general recall of all these vehicles and not burden the citizens with this additional cost," Vafeades added.

In response to a question about the new airbag explosion, the Minister said that the incident took place last October, however, he said this does not matter. "The important thing is that we have an incident which is yet another incident with a defective Takata airbag," he said.

According to Vafeades, there are 80,000 cars on the roads with a component that is potentially dangerous, "for this reason we reiterate the recommendation not to use them and say that these airbags must be replaced as soon as possible."

He also told journalists that a large quantity of spare parts is expected to arrive in Cyprus, and the companies that have a very big number of affected vehicles, around 30,000, have received assurances from the manufacturers themselves, that they will take action to find the airbags and send them to Cyprus. A total of 9 thousand airbags are expected to arrive early March.

Regarding the need for more staff to handle the number of recalls, the Minister said that they expect the companies to provide a business plan.  

He repeated that the law is clear, the responsibility for the recalls lies with the vehicle manufacturers with European approval while the responsibility for the vehicles imported into Cyprus lies with the importers.