Statement by AKEL MP Christos Christofides after the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee for the Monitoring of Development Plans and Scrutiny of Public Expenditure

 

• Financial contributions to ruling DISY party after naturalisations photograph entanglement/interwoven interests
• Glaring conflict of interest from the applications of law firms of members of the Council of Ministers

1 September 2022

We have today submitted to the Parliamentary Audit Committee meeting specific evidence on two issues that we consider particularly serious.

The first is the financial contributions of at least €205k given by those who were granted citizenship to the ruling DISY party, namely those who effectively were taking the decisions of naturalisations, in the period close to their attaining citizenships.  Most of them after passports were granted and it is no coincidence that foreign citizens can give up to €5 thousand as a contribution, based on the law on political parties, while Cypriot citizens can give up to €50 thousand.

Very serious questions and questions of order arise. Why were these contributions given and why were they given in a short period of time after citizenships were granted? We have also invited the Auditor General to confirm the figures initially, but we have also invited the Transparency Commissioner and other competent authorities to investigate the matter and I would like to express my satisfaction at their positive response.

With regard to the second issue, which is the glaring conflict of interest, we have submitted concrete evidence that 353 cases of naturalisation are linked to law firms owned by or linked by first-degree relatives to the President of the Republic himself and current or former government Ministers.

We have asked the Auditor General to clarify in how many of these cases did the government Ministers – who had a relationship with the law firms that were submitting the application – take part in taking decisions on the granting of citizenships/passports. We have also asked the Transparency Commissioner to rule on this unprecedented conflict of interest, given that members of the government, through their decisions, conferred a financial benefit on themselves or their relatives.