AKEL General Secretary Andros Kyprianou continued his row with DISY’s vice chairman, Averoff Neophytou, yesterday, accusing the opposition MP of monitoring him.
Kyprianou criticised the media’s coverage of Neophytou’s claims that the AKEL leader had provided him with a report on the viability of state-owned airline Eurocypria, which no other party had managed to obtain. The insinuation was that leading party AKEL – and the government – had been aware that the airline’s future was questionable when seeking and achieving the approval of a €35 million injection.
“Nobody bothered to look into the essence of the accusations made on our part,” said Kyprianou. “The general secretary of AKEL is being monitored by Averoff Neophytou and Mr Neophytou is aware of who I meet with and what documents they give me at these meetings. Why did Mr Neophytou lie on purpose, leading to the rest of the parties to accuse AKEL of being aware of the Accountant-general’s report on February 8 when releasing the money and not saying anything about it then?”
He said the media “literally buried” his accusation. “From there on, our view on the matter is clear: there is no reason why the report shouldn’t be given to the political parties. We feel it should be given.”
Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis eventually ordered the report to be sent to all parties yesterday, two days after he had given orders for it not to be presented at parliament. Neophytou claimed that he had a copy of the report and hinted that he had acquired it from Kyprianou.
In response to Kyprianou yesterday, Neophytou said DISY didn’t intend to “replace AKEL’s vigilance”.
He was referring to the recent case of a blog administrator whose house was raided by police and his laptops confiscated after a journalist said the blog christofias-watch amounted to death threats.
Neophytou added: “If he [Kyprianou] has the power and the authority, he should send the police to me too to interrogate me over where I got the report but please don’t send the police at 6.30 in the morning as I leave the house a lot earlier.”
Meanwhile, the island’s political parties yesterday continued to react over the Finance Minister’s failure to present them with the report.
The Green Party’s George Perdikis deemed it a “political and financial scandal”, while EDEK’S George Varnava called for immediate answers from the Finance Minister.
House President Marios Garoyian, who is also president of DIKO, said he would do everything in his power to “secure parliament’s prestige”, while the Chairman of the House Watchdog Committee, DISY’s George Georgiou, said the minister’s failure to submit the report was a “conscious act of contempt towards parliament”.
