COMPETITION Commissioner Giorgos Christofides was yesterday left counting flowers on the wallpaper after committee members did not show up for a scheduled meeting.
Work at the agency has ground to a halt due to an ongoing strike by employees complaining about oppressive surveillance.
They say their boss Christofides was using the CCTV system on the premises to monitor their every move, even on their breaks.
Meanwhile, members of the CPC council concerned about allegations that staff documents were tampered with have decided to abstain from committee business.
Earlier this week, the four members had tendered their resignations to President Papadopoulos, but their offer was turned down.
A hearing before the committee yesterday had to be cancelled when no one except Christofides turned up. The CPC had been set to rubber-stamp a planned merger of the Vasilikos and Moni cement factories.
The no-show yesterday gave ammunition to Christofides, who said the strike “jeopardised the public interest”.
The hearing was rescheduled for next week, following the intervention of Commerce Minister Antonis Michaelides.
But Michaelides went a step further, asking the Attorney-general to look into whether the CPC council members had the right to stay away from work if they were not officially on strike.
Technically, the members of the CPC council are civil servants, though they are not part of any trade union; they are appointed directly by the President.
Christofides claims the staff who continue to work at the agency are being intimidated and pressured to join the strike by PASYDY, the civil servants blanket union.
Police have launched a breach-of-privacy investigation, seizing documents and computer data from the CPC offices.
Citing its sources, Politis yesterday spoke of mounting evidence suggesting that Christofides’ surveillance went far beyond security purposes.
For example, investigators found stored on his personal computer some 600 pictures of employees, freeze-frames taken from video recordings.
According to the paper, the vast majority of these photos – some 400 – were of one particular female employee.
Reportedly, the employee in question claims that she was also being watched by messengers all the time, who then reported back to Christofides on her every move.
The digital video recording and transmission system installed at the offices of the CPC can simultaneously display on-screen as well as record live images captured by several cameras. The system can be remote-accessed, even from a computer terminal abroad.
According to the website of MT Piperatis Trading Ltd, the security firm who installed the system, it “identifies human movement in the camera’s view and then starts recording while it can also handle the moving cameras without mediation of an operator. It accepts messages and can handle other applications.”
But the employees complain that the CPC was laced with microphones, so that someone could listen in on their conversations.
The security firm says the system they installed at the CPC did not have audio capability.
But according to Politis, on his own initiative Christofides had set up a separate system that combined video with audio. The paper said that a camera was mounted outside his office, overlooking his secretary’s desk.
And, the paper claimed, this second system was not listed in the CPC’s assets, nor was its installation approved by the relevant authorities.
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