SPOUSES of state officials and politically exposed persons should also be submitting statements of their assets and sources of funds, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Wednesday.
His comments were passed on to the House legal committee via Justice minister Ionas Nicolaou.
It concerns a bill, where state employees, officials, and political exposed persons (PEPs) will be obliged to submit asset and source of funds statements.
This will apply to the President of the Republic, Parliament, ministers and deputies which will be made public.
There will be a list of state officials who submit their statements and make them public, and those who only submit them for review but not the public eye.
Statements will also be submitted for public servants, the teaching sector, semi state organisation staff on an A13 pay scale and above, and public servants who are involved in tender committees.
There are ongoing discussions to include high ranking army and police officers on the list.
Deputies are also trying to regulate the statements that judges will be submitting and how they will be evaluated, likely from a body of other judges.
Deputies aim to have the bill voted by April before parliament’s dissolution in time for the May elections, committee chairman Sotiris Sampson said.
Anastasiades outlined his unwavering stance was that spouse assets should be included in the statements, but out of respect to Parliament and committees, he leaves the matter to their discretion for their handling.
Some issues may arise in instances where couples are separated or if officials submit false documents.
Although there may be some exceptions to the rule, Nicolaou reassured the statements would be evaluated by a team which would have the authority to check bank accounts and land registry files.
The team “will be able to call someone before them to make a statement and if they don’t appear they will have the ability to force them to attend and make a statement,” Nicolaou said.
AKEL’s Aristos Damianou said it was their duty to send a message to society showing they were doing everything they could to clamp down on corruption.
