-
.
- Ελληνικά
It is with sadness that we watch the ongoing effort of the representatives of the Government to undermine the Audit Office since the Presidency Administration received on 27.11.2023. We express our disappointment because, apart from the Director of the Press Office of the President of the Republic of Cyprus who expresses himself in the same dismissive and insulting style[/B] as he did under the previous administration, the Government Spokesperson and his Deputy are moving in a similar approach. We therefore note the following to restore the truth. We do not understand why the Government believes that it is our obligation to scrutinise all these decisions, nor where it bases its claim that those that we do not scrutinise once notified cannot be scrutinised later.
(b) We do not understand why the Government considers that a Decision in which it appeared that temporarily a public servant was to be assigned to perform the functions of the Government Spokesperson at a time when there was no Deputy Government Spokesperson at that time should be considered by our Office as a high risk and priority for scrutiny.
(c) Our Office, both in the case of Mr Andreas Joseph and in the case of Ms Doxa Komodromou, had explained that, unlike in the case of secondment of officials within the central government, in cases of secondments from the wider public sector, there was no legal framework for granting an allowance. Therefore, even before we undertook any audit, we knew that there was a legal basis for granting Mr Christodoulides an allowance. When we carried out the audit we found that for the payment of the amount of €157,209 the standard procedure was not followed, but we did not express an opinion on irregularity.
(d) We did not understand how we could in 2014, having seen the Council of Ministers' Decision guess that, subsequently, Mr Christodoulides:
- illegally would receive a foreign maintenance allowance of €41.024, which is double the amount to which he was entitled,
- illegally would use for private use the car allocated to him by the State for official purposes, covering an average of 138 km per day (including holidays, weekends, days when Mr. Christodoulides was absent abroad and days when he was on leave),
- unlawfully would not complete his leave forms as he should, being a civil servant, but would complete them afterwards and without them being approved by his superior he would be credited with leave and would receive it in the form of money.
(e) We deny the Government's allegations that it received an opinion from the then Attorney General Costas Clerides on the legality of the amounts and benefits unlawfully received by Mr. Christodoulides and which are set out in paragraph (d) above.
(f) The facts have refuted the Government's unsubstantiated claim that our Service allegedly leaked anything to the newspaper Alithia. And yet Government representatives, on the basis of this narrative that they themselves built, continue to smear us
(g) We have explained the facts by "bedroom". The First Lady prohibited our Service Officers
from entering the Presidential Residence
, while the time of entry was set by the Presidency itself, on the grounds that it was a private space[/B]. In reality, this is state property for which the taxpaying citizen, in addition to the €1.15 million spent on energy upgrades, paid a sum of €150,000 to renovate the Presidential Residence and accommodate the Presidential family free of charge. Even today, the taxpaying citizen is paying money for the purchase of new furniture and maintenance of existing furniture. The Auditor General's move there was at the request of the President. It is unheard of for the Auditor General to be blamed for moving there.
(h) On the issue of the illegal transportation of the President's children at taxpayers' expense, we explained that the illegality concerns only the cars and the related expense (fuel and maintenance), which should be borne by the family and not by the taxpaying citizen. We have never gone into security issues and referred to the example of political leaders, for whom the car and related costs are borne by them and the policeman acts as a driver. The necessity of making this issue public was confirmed by the relevant reports of the Government representatives who referred to the periods when the President is absent abroad and the First Lady decides to accompany him. The distorted perception clearly emerges that the police, at the expense of taxpayers, has the obligation to take over parental care. This demonstrates that the problem is deeper and explains the ruthless, to an offensive degree, attack by the representatives of the Government on the Auditor General and on our Service.
2. Under the relevant legislation, the Head of the Presidential Administration is legally responsible for the recovery of the amounts to be recovered[/B]. We expect him to act and he is our auditee
3. The unprecedented since 1960 positions of the Government that the Audit Office has no power to express an opinion unless the Attorney General of the Republic first agrees with their content, and the for the first time since 1960, the reduction of the staff of our Service, accompanied by the orchestrated and systematic attempt to denigrate the Auditor General himself[/B] and our Service in general.
We are surprised to see alleged political motives being attributed to us and to see the spokesman of our Office being described as a representative of a political party. It is obvious that the Government will not tolerate scrutiny. Fortunately, however, the existence of our Service and its powers are not determined by the Government of the day but by the Constitution, the laws and the acquis communautaire.
Otherwise, today is World Anti-Corruption Day. And yet the Service which in every country is considered the flagship in the effort to fight corruption, in Cyprus is being subjected to an unprecedented attempt to undermine it.
(AF)
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
Source
