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Use for internal promotion, instead of enlightenment on the Cyprus problem abroad, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives found in an ex officio inquiry on Tuesday, regarding the improper use of the Foreign Ministry's budget for enlightenment.
The MP of the Movement of Ecologists, Alexandra Attalidou, who registered the issue for discussion in the Foreign Affairs Committee, Alexandra Attalidou, in a statement after the conclusion of the Committee, said that first of all I would like to welcome the admission on the part of the Ministry for the inappropriate use of the fund for the last five years, but also the decision of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to reinstate the internal committee, which decided how the enlightenment funds would be spent.
From the list that the Foreign Ministry has submitted to us at the meeting, more questions arise than those raised by the Auditor General's Report, he said, adding that there are funds that have nothing to do with enlightenment[/B], but are related to promotion inside Cyprus.
For us, this issue is unthinkable. Let me remind you that in the past there was also a person imprisoned for an issue related to the management of enlightenment funds and so we will come back with much more specific questions, especially on issues related to Social Networks, he said.
Ms. Attalidou said that in addition to the various groups that were funded that did not involve promoting the Cyprus issue or enlightenment, there were specific funds that were meant to promote the image of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Minister in Cyprus. This thing has nothing to do with enlightenment, so already, based on the data we have, we will submit a new question for the analysis of each fund separately.
Asked about the period under consideration, she said it is from 2018 to 2022. Attalidou noted that in 2000 an internal committee had been set up to manage the fund, which consisted of Ministry officials who looked at each action from the perspective of enlightenment on the Cyprus issue.
This committee was subsequently abolished, however the Ministry was unable to provide information on when this was done and would look into it. One person cannot decide the use of funds which the Parliament approved in the budget for a specific purpose, she said, adding that the Ministry must have a strategy for the use of these funds.
In response to the amount of money included in the Enlightenment budget, Attalidou said it was quite a large amount. For 2018-2019 it was €384,000, which in 2021 was increased to €400,000. These are amounts which are significant. They are not large for enlightenment. Other countries, such as Turkey, spend huge amounts to promote their own positions. But it needs good administration.
Finally, Attalidou said that in the last five years Cyprus' image abroad has declined very much, for very many reasons, because unfortunately Cyprus has a huge problem to get its own positions across, I think it is a double responsibility of those who had this fund and did not use it for these purposes. Cyprus has lost a lot of political capital in recent years. We are a country that has been fingered for many reasons, for corruption and for all the derogations we have from European legislation. So the enlightenment budget is a matter of responsibility for me and we will investigate it.
The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament, Harris Georgiades, said that the Committee examined the issue of enlightenment funds on the basis of the findings of the Audit Service, noting that "it is clear that there have been examples of misuse of this fund, but they have been identified and acknowledged by the Ministry itself."
As he said, the Foreign Ministry "has wheeled out changes and the decision-making process will be by an Enlightenment Committee and will be targeted exclusively at issues related to the Cyprus issue, so that there is no suspicion and no use other than for this purpose."
"I think," he said, "that the Foreign Ministry - with Mr Kasoulides himself being the first to react - shows in this case a willingness to correct a bad practice."
AKEL MP, Giorgos Koukoumas, said that "there are huge questions about how the DISY government used these funds over the past years."
As he noted, "big questions arise and these questions arise because we have before us firstly the special report of the Audit Office for 2022, secondly we have before us the admissions of the Foreign Ministry itself and thirdly we have all the questions arising from the descriptions of the payments for these funds, submitted by the Foreign Ministry over the last five years."
Intergovernmental agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the US
In addition, the House Foreign Affairs Committee examined and referred to plenary an intergovernmental agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the US on the issues of cooperation between the US Armed Forces and the National Guard.
According to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, "any step that strengthens cooperation, especially with the US in this area, is extremely important", since, he added, "it highlights the prospects of our foreign and defence policy, as well as confirms the orientation."
"We consider this discrete convention very important," he added.
Source: CNA
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