Conflict of interest on behalf of the Rector of the University of Cyprus
1. In response to today's announcement of the University of Cyprus (UC) we note the following.3.2022 letter in which he argued against two of the four amendments that had been tabled on the Budget. One concerned the introduction of a cap (as a percentage of the regular salary) that would apply to the additional remuneration given to members of the Faculty of Medicine.
(b) In our letter of 16.3.2022 we informed the President of the House of Representatives that the Rector's daughter is employed as a researcher at the Faculty of Medicine of the PC, stating that this creates a major conflict of interest for the Rector, who, it should be noted, had forwarded the letter in question without a decision to this effect having been taken by the Council of the PC, which under the relevant Law (Law No. 144/1989), the Council itself, and not the Rector, has the management and control of the administrative and financial affairs of the University, and in particular it has, inter alia, the following powers.
2.In addition to the above, with regard to today's announcement, we note the following. The possibility of establishing such Research Units is derived from relevant Regulations approved by the Parliament (EPC 144/99), which clearly stipulate that the Centres are subordinated to the PC and are accountable both to the PC and to the relevant faculty of the PC. The establishment of any such Centre requires the approval of the Parliament. The head of this Centre is a professor of the Faculty of Medicine.
We note that until yesterday in the organisational chart of the PC, the Biobank.cy Centre of Excellence was listed under the Faculty of Medicine, as the relevant Faculty, and today it has been moved elsewhere in order to appear to be ostensibly independent. However, the legislation does not provide for Research Centres without a relevant Faculty or Department
The Rector's daughter has been on the BC payroll since 2013. PK is her employer as defined in the relevant Social Security and income tax legislation. We mention this because the announcement gives the reader the impression that this person is paid directly by sponsors
3.Based on the above, the issues that have arisen regarding the Rector's actions remain and, as we stated in our letter, will be subject to further scrutiny.
At the same time, as we had mentioned during the meetings of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Sports and Youth, our Office will proceed with an audit of the salaries of PK professors through research projects. The aim of the audit will be to establish whether the EU bodies funding such projects are aware and accept that teachers are paid, for the same working time, by both the FP and these European bodies. We recall that, under Article 325 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, 'Member States shall take the same measures to counter fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union as they take to counter fraud affecting their own financial interests'.
(NΓ/ΣΧ)
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