Neither the cover up, nor the deliberate misleading will save the government
AKEL on the Audit Office’s Report on the naturalizations issue
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 24th September 2020, Nicosia
The Audit Office Report on the five citizenship by investment applications enhances everything that has been revealed in recent years around the passport sales business set up by the Anastasiades-DISY government. After all, the report in its first lines points out that the current government in 2013 “radically revised the program that has been in force since 2007”. This is precisely what permitted the framework characterised by non-transparency, abuse and greed to be set up and develop into a multibillion-dollar feast.
Passports were granted to persons without a clean criminal record. Passports issued without financial criteria being met. Passports granted to high-risk individuals involved in money laundering. Passports issued to the members of the families of investors, without a relevant legislation existing. If, after scrutinizing just five citizenship by investment granted by the Anastasiades government, the Audit Office has revealed heaps of illegalities and irregularities, one wonders what happened in the case of the thousands of other naturalizations?
The Report also reveals that for a number of applications there were written instructions from the former Minister of the Interior to speed up the examination. This revelation demands an immediate reply. Who are the ones whose applications needed to be processed quickly? By what criteria did the former Minister give these instructions?
People now understand why the government is blocking the Audit Office from having access to the naturalization files and why the Minister of the Interior demanded that this Report should not be made public.
However, neither the cover up, nor the deliberate misleading will save the government from its own actions that shamed the country all over the world. Only transparency and the will to decisively stamp out corruption will restore the name of our country.
