The Cyprus Investment Programme is the definition of institutional entanglement/interwoven interests and political corruption
Statement by AKEL Political Bureau member and MP A.Damianou
24 August 2022, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia
The Cyprus Investment Programme (CIP) is no ordinary scandal. It IS the definition of institutional entanglement/interwoven interests and political corruption. Through successive government political decisions, a programme was established, drawn up to suit the measures of a rotten system which was fostered and perpetuated by the Anastasiades-DISY government itself.
Successive Reports and Findings, with the most recent being the Report of the Audit Office, have documented astonishing details inter alia: passports granted to criminals, dictators and mafiosi, illegal naturalisations, naturalisations without meeting any financial criteria, abuses and excesses of power by the Ministerial Council, the loss of millions of taxes.
Neither the dozens of public statements and complaints AKEL had made since 2015, nor the international disgrace and shaming of the Republic of Cyprus, nor the warnings issued by the EU, nor the popular outcry have affected the government ruling forces. Even after the Programme was suspended, they continued the ‘golden passport’ feast. The callousness and demeaning of citizens is well-known.
On 23 January 2019, responding to the EU in a stern tone, Anastasiades stated that “we have the strictest measures of all 20 countries which offer the possibility of obtaining EU citizenship, criteria and yet Cyprus is being targeted”.
On 31 October 2019, after the European Commission had released a report condemning the CIP and the Republic of Cyprus, the leader of the ruling DISY party Averof Neophytou, disagreeing with the criticism, stated that “we are doing an injustice to our country, we are doing an injustice to the President of the Cypriot state and unfortunately we will have consequences on the Cyprus economy with these messages we are conveying from Cyprus”.
On 20 October 2020, the then Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides received a letter of derision from the EU Justice Commissioner which underlined the following: “Mr. Minister, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that national measures providing for the establishment and operation of a citizenship programme for investors, such as the Cyprus Investment Programme, are not in line with EU law.” Today, as a pretentious neutral, Presidential candidate Christodoulides is calling for an investigation to be carried out.
President Anastasiades will leave office soon. The other two are debating who will continue Mr. Anastasiades’ policies and be his successor. The citizens have a judgment and they have a choice. We must not perpetuate the current government ruling forces in power with another person. We should at long last put an end to the “most corrupt government”.
