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The Minister of Finance, George Loukaidis, responds to the allegations made against him at the Audit Committee.
In a statement, Mr Petrides says, among other things, that the AKEL MP reported lies, while at the same time he speaks of his obsession.
The statement of the Minister of Finance:
"Based on my intervention in the Audit Committee where I was called to discuss the Auditor General's report on OAI, Mr Loukaides launched a personal attack against me, describing me as an opponent of YESY.
At the meeting I did nothing less and nothing more than agree with the Auditor General's findings and support his recommendations. Is the Auditor General also an opponent of the GESY according to Mr. Loukaides?
Mr. Loukaides falsely refers to a unilateral decision of the Ministry of Finance to "deprive €103 million from the GESY. Nothing more untrue. The €103 million relates to health expenditure (purchases of medicines, patient referrals to the private sector), currently covered by the Ministry of Health, which by law must be recovered from the global budget of the GESY. For this reason, the Ministry of Health, in agreement with the Ministry of Finance, has offset the State subsidy against these costs, recovering the amount in question. A practice which is widely applied in the public sector, in accordance with the relevant legislation. Both the Attorney General and the Auditor General, who even includes this in his recommendations and has made a public statement, are in agreement with this. It is something that ensures that the taxpaying citizen is not burdened twice, both through contributions and by covering health costs from the state budget, to the detriment of other social and development policies. In this way, the Health Insurance Agency (HIA) will, as it should, cover all health expenditure from the resources provided by society and the state and avoid wasteful and unprofitable agreements for society.
The strong political position I expressed was the faithful implementation of the legislation of the GHC and the respect of the global budget, so as to ensure the sustainability of the GHC, as were most of the positions of all the other parties except Mr.
It really raises questions about Mr. Loukaidis' insistence on ignoring the non-implementation of the GHS legislation, the abuses that nibble at the global budget at the expense of patients, and the lack of control that can be observed in the OAS. It is this attitude that in essence is polemic against the GHC and its viability and could be perceived as serving alien economic and partisan interests.
It is not the observance of legislation that is polemic against the GHC but the refusal to implement it and the abuses.
The government has strengthened the health sector more than any government in the past. Both by implementing the YESY and by upgrading hospitals. During the crisis the Ministry of Finance allocated more than €150 million extra to the health system to deal with the pandemic, which did not affect the finances of the GHS at all, since during the same period the OAI suspended any payments to public hospitals. At the same time, the Council of Ministers decided that an amount of €50 million would be paid to the OAS budget if it was considered that the finances of the GHS were affected. The facts, however, speak for themselves. The Agency's cash/surplus at the end of 2021 exceeded €300 million.
It is commonly accepted and acknowledged in detail in the Auditor General's Report that revenues during the period of implementation of the GHS were much higher than expected, due to the better performance of the Cypriot economy as a result of the sound economic policies pursued, which does not justify any explosion in health expenditure. The Agency, by not following rational resource management practices, by not carrying out the necessary controls, has led to an excessive increase in health expenditure of more than 40%, jeopardising the sustainability of the Plan.
I assure citizens that the Government will proceed responsibly and will demand the full implementation of legislation for the proper implementation of the GHS, avoiding practices that promote abuses, tax evasion and unacceptable policies that undermine the sustainability of the GHS.
This is the only way to protect this important social achievement that we have managed to implement as a Government. Opponents of the GHS or those who want to use the GHS for other reasons naturally disagree. This is where Mr.Loukaides should address himself."
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