GOVERNMENT spokesman Vasilis Palmas yesterday took “full responsibility” for misinforming the public about the involvement of the President’s law firm in a state tender for a floating LNG terminal worth billions.
In early 2003, the previous government took the decision to build a land terminal for LNG, a decision endorsed by the Papadopoulos administration a year later.
However, by 2007 nothing had been done towards the implementation of this decision and the government started discussing the possibility of setting up a floating terminal, which supposedly could be built in half the time and thus spare the government the massive fines the EU would impose for the failure to use natural gas at power stations.
But over the summer, it emerged that a company known as Apollo, a former client of Tassos Papadopoulos & Associates, was behind a bid for the floating storage and re-gasification (FSRU) terminal, which smacked of conflict of interest for the law firm previously run by the President.
Critics immediately pointed out that the delay on the land-based facility had been deliberate, so as to “sell” the floating solution to the public. The news prompted opposition leader Nicos Anastassiades to dub this the “scandal of the century.”
In the wake of the reports, Palmas had said, verbatim: “The only involvement of the office of Tassos Papadopoulos was the registering of the two companies, on the instructions of the Cypriot shareholder in July 2005. From then on there was no other involvement.”
But subsequent media reports revealed that a lawyer from the president’s law office (Nicholas Papadopoulos, the President’s son) had been carrying out legal work on behalf of these companies both in 2006 and even as late as 2007.
The false information given by Palmas at the time fuelled suspicion the Papadopoulos administration was trying to hide something.
Yesterday, Palmas tried to set the record straight, implying that he himself had been misinformed.
“I take full responsibility [for this error], and I am at the media’s disposal for the harshest possible criticism a political figure may be subjected to,” he said.
“Since a great deal was said to the effect the government spokesman lied, or that President Papadopoulos instructed the spokesman to lie…I wish to say now that the President never instructed me to mention June 2005 as the date.”
But he refused to be drawn on where he got his information.
“And no, I am not anyone’s scapegoat,” he said, in response to a question.
“If lynching the government spokesman is what it takes to put a stop to this scandal-mongering…then I am perfectly willing to accept responsibility. I am ready to pay the price for what has emerged as the so-called lie about the dates,” he added.
But opposition DISY, which have spearheaded the scandal allegations, were none too impressed.
“The spokesman’s mea culpa today is hard proof of a scandal and of the government’s attempts to conceal the truth,” insisted DISY spokesman Harris Georgiades.
“If the spokesman had indeed made an innocent mistake in June, why did those involved not debunk his statement or correct it the very next day?
“Moreover, instead of a correction, Nicholas Papadopoulos himself continued insisting for the next couple of months that the law office terminated its relations with the companies in question in 2005.
“Why did it take three whole months for this admission, and why does it come only after the opposition leader submitted his evidence?” wondered Georgiades.
“We would like to express our sympathy for the government spokesman, who has been forced to shoulder the responsibility of others,” he added.
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