THE GOVERNMENT was left red-faced yesterday when it transpired that a member of the Property Working Group, set up to prepare the ground for direct talks, had applied for and won compensation from the controversial “property commission” in the north.
President Demetris Christofias fired the official immediately after discovering that the working group member had appealed to the self-styled property commission for a remedy against his occupied land.
According to government spokesman, Stefanos Stefanou, the government was caught unaware Wednesday night when Antenna television broke the news that a working group member had gone to the “property commission” in the north seeking thousands of dollars in compensation.
Once the member in question confirmed the reports to the Presidential Palace, Christofias dismissed the technocrat immediately “to send a message as a point of order”, said Stefanou, adding that the offending member was not a political figure.
According to sources cited by CyBC last night, the official had sought $800,000 compensation from the commission for land in a village in the Kyrenia District. The applicant eventually received $250,000 for the land in December 2007, said the CyBC.
Three months later, somewhat embarrassingly for the government, the official was appointed by the Presidential Palace to sit on the working group dealing with the thorny issue of property.
Stefanou stressed that the working groups were responsible for tabling the positions of each side and looking for points of convergence, not negotiating, which was the sole reserve of the two leaders.
The spokesman added that the working groups had finished their work in September 2008, after which they remained inactive. In any case, following the latest revelation, this technocrat will no longer be part of the property working group or any other.
“We looked into it, and yes, the issue exists, as told in the news report. Once we established that this was the case, the President dismissed that person from the working group immediately,” said Stefanou.
AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou defended the government’s ignorance on the matter, saying: “Are we going to hire a detective to investigate every person (before being appointed to a working group)?”
The working groups were set up on March 21, along with the technical committees, to prepare the ground for direct talks which began last September.
“They finished their work without disbanding, because the President himself said we might need their help at some point. He didn’t know about the so-called property commission. If he did, he would have dismissed him from then,” said Stefanou.
The spokesman refused to be drawn into the details of the case, saying that the property commission in the north was “a very sensitive issue which is why we try not to say too much in public”.
The non-viability of the self-styled property commission is a key prerequisite of the Republic of Cyprus and Greek Cypriot refugees’ appeals to the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey as an occupying power. The last thing the government would want is to give the body legitimacy as a viable domestic remedy as it would force all Greek Cypriot refugees to seek remedies there first before their recourse to the Strasbourg court.
