Whenever it doesn’t suit this government or it worried that it may be exposed, it covers up, keeps quiet or censors
Statement by Aristos Damianou, member of the Political Bureau of the C.C. of AKEL and AKEL MP
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 29th June 2016, Nicosia
From the first moment of the disclosure of the documents in Panama (Panama Papers), the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou called on the government and the President of the Republic to officially request the documents. Unfortunately, the government didn’t. Neither did it do so when we submitted this proposal twice in the Parliamentary Committee on Institutions.
At the same time, we proposed the revealing of publicly exposed persons for reasons of transparency, without the inclusion on the list necessarily meaning a criminal offense, since Cyprus is a centre for the provision of services. This proposal was also rejected.
The results of the investigation conducted so far by the authorities are disappointing. Only 100 cases in 3,678 have been identified, even though there were more than 40,000 transactions made. Developments as a whole are similar to the scandal regarding the non-identification of the capital outflows before the haircut on bank deposits and during the period banks were closed.
Whenever it doesn’t suit the government or the government is worried that it may be exposed, it covers up, keeps quiet or censors. This constitutes an unacceptable political behavior by a government that otherwise promised transparency in public life.
