THE GOVERNMENT has no records of the decision to approve a €35 million injection into Eurocypria earlier this year, it has transpired. There was neither written nor audio record, the House Watchdog Committee was told. The Committee is investigating how the decision to invest such a big amount of money an ailing company was taken as some deputies believe the finance minister deceived the legislature to secure its approval for the expenditure.
The Committee had written to the secretary of the Council of Ministers demanding to see the minutes of the meeting, which took the decision to approve the €35m. It was informed that there were no minutes, relating to Eurocypria because the matter was not on the agenda of the meeting and members were briefed orally about the finance minister’s intentions.
The Committee subsequently asked to hear the audio recording of the meeting and was told that the tape had been deleted after the minutes were typed up.
Any rational person would conclude that the government was trying to hide something because the alternative would be to debit it with monumental incompetence. Failing to keep any record of the justification used for spending €35m in taxpayer’s money is not just slapdash but it exposes an alarming ineptitude. The former explanation is still more plausible, even though there have been plenty of displays of government incompetence over the last two-and-a-half years.
Committee chairman George Georgiou said the government was in violation of the law in refusing to provide the House Committee with the minutes of the cabinet meeting and would not drop the issue. Of course it is possible that the legislature would eventually be given minutes that were re-written in order to support the government claim that the cash help to Eurocypria had not been on the agenda of the meeting. Openness and transparency are not concepts generally associated with the Christofias government.
What were they thinking?
WE DO not know who took the decision for the start of construction work at Solomou Square, but whoever it was could not have chosen a worse time. The work started last week, just as the Christmas shopping season was about to begin, closing one of the main roads out of old Nicosia and causing big tail-backs at Paphos Gate. The situation is bound to get worse over the next few days as more people drive to the centre of town for their Christmas shopping.
Could Nicosia Municipality not have asked contractors to wait until after the festive season to start work? If it the project had to start this year because of contractual obligations, why was it not started in October? Shopkeepers in the old part of town could see their business drop, as people may be put off driving into the centre. As if coping with the effects of the worst-ever recession was not bad enough they could now face an even bigger fall in business because of the Solomou Square roadworks.
