By Poly Pantelides
The chairman of state telecommunications CyTA, who is under a graft investigation over a dodgy land deal, was prevented from entering the company’s headquarters on Tuesday and has been declared a persona non grata by the unions.
Stathis Kittis was released from detention on Sunday, after the latest of two remand orders expired in connection to graft investigations over a €20.5 million land deal in Larnaca’s Dromolaxia area.
Kittis had spent most of his remand in hospital but left hospital on the day his second remand order expired and showed up at CyTA offices ready to work on Tuesday afternoon.
CyTA unions PASE, SEP and ASET had been informed Kittis would attempt to return to work and issued an announcement earlier on Tuesday declaring him unwelcome. At roughly 1.15pm, Kittis was driven into the CyTA headquarters by his chauffeur.
The unions’ representative Alecos Tryfonides was among those who stood outside the offices as soon as word got out Kittis was coming in.
“We were notified he had arrived and in no time hundreds of staff gathered, asking him to leave,” Tryfonides said.
Kittis left within fifteen minutes and did not exchange words with those booing him outside the entrance.
The unions have asked Kittis to resign immediately as he had promised to do by the end of September. They have also called on the CyTA board to resign in its entirety, washing their hands of what they said was the board’s “common journey” with Kittis.
The unions added that although everyone has the right to be presumed innocent until a court judges otherwise, they considered Kittis to be “morally guilty to the mind of the CyTA staff and society at large for the devastation of [CyTA’s] dignity”.
Parliament has recently passed a law allowing Cabinet to dismiss and appoint the directors on the boards of semi-governmental organisations, such as CyTA. Cabinet will be able to replace the directors by December 31 of the calendar year during which presidential elections were held, allowing the current government’s Cabinet to enforce the law by the end of this year.
In addition to Kittis, also implicated in the land deal case, are two members of former ruling party AKEL’s secretariat, a businessman, a union rep, another CyTA senior official and his brother, a land registry official.
Meanwhile, businessman Nicos Lillis and two police officers, Costas Miamiliotis and Lefteris Mouskou are facing charges in connection with the case at the Larnaca District Court.
CyTA’s pension fund, whose management committee is headed by Kittis, bought office space in Dromolaxia at allegedly greatly inflated prices. Allegations have surfaced over millions of euros being paid in kickbacks, which are subject to an investigation by police and an independent committee appointed by Cabinet.
Meanwhile the police chief is looking into allegations that members of the police force had tried to intimidate a key witness whose testimony is believed to have led to the arrest of the two AKEL officials.
AKEL has accused the government of a “political stitch-up” and has proudly supported its members. Party leader Andros Kyprianou said if his colleagues end up in court then he would submit proof of the stitch-up to the authorities.
