A PARLIAMENTARY committee witch hunt targeting Greek Cypriots who allegedly received American money to promote the Annan plan is spiralling towards a high-level diplomatic clash.
The US embassy and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday rubbished claims made by the Finance Ministry’s Planning Bureau at the House Institutions Committee that some $60 million was channelled into Cyprus to secure a ‘yes’ vote.
A letter from the UNDP to Andreas Mavroyiannis, Cyprus` ambassador to Washington called for the claims to be retracted, while the American embassy in Nicosia said the allegations that the US “directly or indirectly paid people to support the Annan Plan are insulting and utterly without foundation.”
All the embassy had done was to provide funding for the research, drafting and printing of “the Citizen’s Guide to the Annan Plan” in Greek, Turkish and English. It was no secret, the embassy said.
President Papadopoulos also weighed in yesterday insisting that money was given out without the government’s knowledge.
During the committee meeting last week, Planning Bureau chief Andreas Moleskis said that $60.5 million was channelled though the Bicommunal Development Programme (BDP) to sway Cypriot voters in favour of the Annan plan. He also said that the amount given to NGOs and individuals without government approval reached “double figures in millions”.
The UNDP”s letter to Mavroyiannis said this was a “gross misrepresentation of the facts” and called on the Planning Bureau chief to rectify the statements.
The UN agency, which distributed funds in Cyprus through the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), said that out of the $66.9 million provided to the BDP from 1998 to 2005 only $188,000 was spent on activities related to the dissemination of information on the provisions of the Annan plan.
“The sole purpose of these activities was to support the efforts of concerned Cypriots from both communities who sought to facilitate access by the public to information on the Annan plan,” the UNDP letter said. “The decision to fund these activities was undertaken based on experiences in other societies where dissemination of unbiased neutral information on key issues is considered non controversial.”
Referring to those projects approved directly by UNDP and USAID, special initiative grants amounts to just over $300,000 the vast majority of which went on bicommunal concerts, cultural events, conferences and workshops on technical and social issues.
It did say a number of larger projects had been carried out but the majority had been approved under the previous UNHCR programme and inherited by UNOPS.
Only a handful of projects were approved directly, amounting to roughly $4 million, of which the largest was the production of a bi-communal TV series for children called Gimmie6, which had been discussed with the Education Ministry, the UNDP said.
“In other words the claim that projects amounting to ‘double figures in millions’ were approved outside the usual procedures is a clear exaggeration,” it added.
All of the information had been readily available to the Planning Bureau for almost two years, it said.
Addressing Mavroyiannis, the UNDP letter said: “I would be grateful if you could help in ensuring that the correct information is provided to the Committee and to the general public at the next available opportunity.”
However the government yesterday insisted that suspect activities had taken place.
A Planning Bureau statement said the UNDP letter was an admission that part of the aid was allocated without the knowledge of the Cyprus Republic.
“The problem now lies in the extent of the amount that was granted outside of regular procedures,” the statement said. Adding that this is what the House Committee was trying to establish. “The Director General of the Planning Bureau has the legal obligation to tell the truth to the Cypriot parliament,” it added.
In statements at Larnaca airport President Papadopoulos said there was money allocated which the government knew about and money allocated, of which it had no prior knowledge.
“There existed a process for projects that involved a joint committee with representative of the Cyprus Republic and the UNDP but there also existed another fund, which was disposed of outside this process,” he said. “These funds were unknown to us and were not allocated in the usual manner.”
He cited as proof one incident concerning a representative of the press taking money during the April 2004 referendum period to promote the Annan plan, and issuing receipts for that money.
