COMMERCE Minister George Lillikas yesterday came out in defence of his role regarding the awarding of an advertising contract by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) to an organisation associated with his wife’s company, Marketway.
A storm erupted this week when it emerged that an international advertising company associated with Marketway was awarded a £2.8 million contract by the CTO for an advertising campaign abroad. Given that the CTO comes under the umbrella of the Commerce Ministry, a number of questions were raised about the handling of the contract selection.
The company in question is Athens-based Optimedia, part of the international group Publicis, which is associated with Marketway, the company of Lillikas’ wife.
On Wednesday, the House Watchdog Committee agreed to list the issue on its agenda, though stopped short of naming Lillikas directly, instead referring to scrutiny of the CTO tender procedures.
Committee chairman Christos Pourgourides said deputies would be examining whether the minister’s family business was linked to the company awarded the contract. He added that if the reports were true, Lillikas should have immediately publicised any connection with Optimedia.
Lillikas yesterday repeated that Marketway has nothing to do with Optimedia directly, but is associated to its international parent company Publicis. He highlighted that since he took over the ministry, Marketway had not made an offer for any advertising campaign for an organisation under the ministry.
“I repeat that the company which my wife is a major shareholder of has not submitted no tender to the CTO in the last two years while I was minister, none. It has no relation with the specific company, or asked or participated in the tender of that company.”
“(Marketway) collaborates with the international company Publicis. This is not a secret. But the tender was not by Publicis, but by Optimedia, a company which Marketway has absolutely no cooperation with or agreement with,” said Lillikas.
“Are people under the impression that multinational corporations ask the permission of Cypriot companies before making an offer, especially for a job to be undertaken abroad?” he added.
The minister highlighted that if he had intended any wrongdoing he would not have specifically requested a change of procedure in awarding contracts. Lillikas said he asked that members of the CTO board of directors not be used in the selection process, leaving decisions to the ministry technocrats.
“If I wanted to use my position as a minister for my wife’s company or other company regarding tenders, I would have left the original procedure in place, with members of the board involved in the tender process, who I could have access to for favours… that proves my will and intention to establish some order and transparency from the start, from two years ago,” said Lillikas.
CTO President Photis Photiou welcomed parliament’s decision to discuss the tender process, but called for a speedy end to the debate so that the organisation could get on with its job, that of attracting tourism.
“I hope this dialogue will end soon because this public debate does not help from the moment that the CTO is in the process of hiring a new advertising company.”
Photiou maintained that everything was above board regarding the tender process. “The CTO is one of the few semi-government organisations up-to-date on regulations for tenders, one of few which has procedures based on EU guidelines. There is full transparency,” he said.
Photiou called on all involved to leave party politics aside, as tourism was a national cause that did not share the colour of any party.
Meanwhile, the Association of Advertising and Communication Businesses (SDEK) called for immediate measures to be taken to ensure the transparency of advertising or communication contracts with government or semi-government organisations. SDEK said it was surprises to receive a letter from lawyers representing Marketway requesting that it abstain from defamatory comments against the company. The association maintained that it was the competent organisation to discuss such issues in Cyprus in a responsible manner and refused to accept any effort to limit its freedom to express its opinions.
