THE PAPHOS mayoral elections, made necessary after the resignation of Savvas Vergas, have failed to deflect public attention away from the corruption, in which all the political parties are involved. Although it seemed as if prospective alliances, candidacies and unified fronts would have displaced the large-scale corruption from the news, which was what the parties wanted, the latest reports have changed all that.
The latest reports suggest that Vergas has named two deputies allegedly involved, and that the director of the Paphos Sewage Board was trying to reach a deal with the police and the prosecution by also giving names of people involved in the scandal, including those of the deputies. This is a positive development because it indicates that the political parties will be unable to control the revelations which are threatening to expose their direct involvement in the corruption that blights the country, which everyone talks about but cannot prove.
Paphos municipal councillors knew what was going but not one of them dared to speak out when the illegalities were taking place because there is an understanding among the parties on such issues. Not one councillor had dared to speak out against Vergas when he decided to build his own private tennis court on public land next to his house. They knew about it, just as they knew about the charity concert that gave no money to charity, but they all chose to keep quiet, presumably because they did not want to cause a stir over what they regarded as low-level corruption that was as much a part of local government as garbage collection.
Once the cat was out of the bag and the mayor’s deeds became national news the councillors were eager to speak about the irregularities on the morning radio shows. Some even found the courage to speak about what had been going on at the Paphos Sewage Board without referring to the pay-offs by the contractors. How could they when parties had also benefited from the backhanders? EDEK received €30,000 while Alki football club, which is under the protection of AKEL, received €100,000, according to documents published in Politis last Sunday.
The other parties may also have benefited from the contractors’ generosity, but for now there is no evidence. Needless to say that the money for the pay-offs was generated from overcharging the state for the sewage projects; no councillor thought there was anything wrong when the contractor kept demanding additional payments. There are similarities with the Dromolaxia affair which leads us to believe that the parties are not “the cells of democracy” as AKEL deputies never tire of reminding us, but “the cells of corruption”.
Was it a coincidence that none of the parties said a word while Andreas Vgenopoulos was plundering the money of Laiki Bank’s depositors and using it for illegal share support schemes? AKEL which received €1 million from Focus Maritime, controlled by a Vgenopoulos associate, never said a bad word against the Greek banker during its public campaign against the banks; DISY received €500,000 from the same source in 2008 but was less protective of the banker.
It is naive to believe the politicians when they claim they will fight corruption, considering they are the main cause of it. For years they have been ignoring the recommendations of Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body, GRECO (Group of States against Corruption), for transparency in party funding, refusing to finalise legislation because they do not want to reveal the identity of contributors to party funds. They are also vehemently opposed to the privatisation of SGOs because these were sources of funds through backhanders as the Dromolaxia case has illustrated.
The Dromolaxia verdict will be announced later this month, and Vergas and his associates are almost certain to face criminal charges, while the investigation into the Focus Maritime money trail might be completed at some point. However, there is still a very long way to go in the fight against the corruption that plagues all aspects of public life.
The political establishment will cite the above-mentioned cases as proof of its commitment to clean up the country in the hope of silencing its detractors and returning to its old, corrupt ways. This is why public pressure, from conventional and social media, interest groups, campaigners, even individuals, must be unrelenting. Public exposure, which the auditor-general has been resorting to with considerable success, is a powerful tool, while whistle-blowing must be encouraged and, if possible, rewarded. Deals with prosecution witnesses, like the one Paphos Sewage Board chief has proposed, must be actively pursued.
There must be no let-up to the pressure, because we cannot rely on the parties and politicians to voluntarily abandon the sordid practices they have been pursuing and benefiting from for decades.
