EDEK DEPUTY Marinos Sizopoulos has accused Attorney-general Petros Clerides of covering up a scandal in the Pharmaceutical Services.
The two men traded insults during a discussion in the House Health Committee on Thursday.
The case relates to the return of £14,000 to a pharmaceutical company by the Health Ministry, something that Sizopoulos believes constitutes an irregularity. The decision for paying the money back to the company was made by Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Soteris Soteriou.
The money had initially been taken from the company for the delay in the delivery of a batch of pharmaceuticals.
The war of words began after Clerides insisted that the payment did not represent an indiscretion, leading Sizopoulos to suggest that the Attorney-general was not conducting the investigation properly and was attempting a cover up.
Clerides responded by launching a stinging attack on Sizopoulos, saying that he was “a nobody” that wanted to become a “public figure”, adding that he had left himself exposed by criticising a senior public official of a scandal.
This prompted another furious reaction from the deputy, who said:
“None of the cases I have talked about has proved to be untrue. It is not me that keeps on swallowing up these scandals.”
The Attorney-general maintained that there was no evidence of wrongdoing in this case, adding that if the money was paid to the company in question from the wrong account, this was the responsibility of the Accounts Department at the Health Ministry and not Mr Soteriou.
Meanwhile, Clerides confirmed that the second scandal he was probing that related to the Health Services should be concluded within a month. According to the Attorney-general, the case – that has seen the Director of the Health Services Louis Panayi suspended – was proving to be harder than he had envisaged.
“The investigation is taking longer than first thought, however the Attorney-general’s office is not to blame for the delay. The preliminary investigation is currently in the hands of the police,” he said.
Sizopoulos had claimed that the Attorney-general was holding back a report that showed 102 irregularities in the Pharmaceutical Service.
Clerides refused to be drawn into a second shouting match, saying that “the investigation was still ongoing”.
He also added that he would not force the case to the courts without securing evidence that points to any unlawful activity.
