CY defends contract award

CYPRUS Airways (CY) yesterday defended its decision to award a lucrative computer contract to a company owned by a CY board member.

Earlier this year, CY subsidiary Zenon National Distribution Centre Ltd, awarded the £300,000 contract for 400 computers to Micrologic, a small well- established computer company in Limassol, which is owned by CY board member Tonis Antoniou.

According to the law, anyone appointed by the President or the Council of Ministers is a public servant – including CY board members. But Cyprus Airways operates under company law, which only forbids tender applications from employees of the commissioning company. Board members are not classed as employees.

However, in an announcement yesterday CY said that Zenon worked autonomously and independently of the national carrier and had its own board of directors and management.

It added that the entire tenders procedure had been carried out legally and out in the open and that the contract was given to the lowest bidder for the overall good of the company.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.