By Constantinos Psillides
THE ad hoc committee tasked with discerning the reasons why Cyprus Airways went bankrupt met for the first time on Friday, with committee chairman Nicos Tornaritis pledging that if any criminal liability is uncovered then the Attorney General would be notified immediately.
“Our goal is not to turn the parliament into a people’s court. We will work together with the office of the Attorney General as well as all other stakeholders, under full transparency,” said the DISY MP.
The parliament decided on January 29 to set up a committee that will look into reasons that led to the shutdown of the former national carrier. Cyprus Airways was grounded on January 9 after the European Commission ruled that a multi-million state aid package the company received in 2012 was in violation of EU competition laws. The company was ordered to return €66m to the state and as it was unable to comply, it was forced to shut down.
Closing down the airline left around 500 people out of work and sparked protests outside parliament and the Finance ministry. The employees accuse Finance minister Harris Georgiades of not fighting for the company and facilitating the bankruptcy so as to serve the interests of its competitors. Both the state and the minister have repeatedly dismissed these allegations, citing chronic mismanagement and misappropriation of funds as the reason why the company was forced into closure.
The ad hoc committee chairman said the MPs will dig as far back as 1980 explaining that this was the year the airline’s board decided to start expanding its fleet.
“This is going to be a difficult task and we are going to need a lot of support. There are numerous reports, studies, board decisions and accounts we have to go through. But we will do what we must to get to the truth,” promised Tornaritis.
Opposition AKEL MP Yiannos Lamaris will serve as deputy chairman. Fellow AKEL MPs Stavros Evagorou and Pambos Papageorgiou will also be part of the committee, along with DISY MPs Marios Mavrides and Rikkos Mappourides, DIKO MPs Angelos Votsis and Antonis Antoniou, EDEK MP Nikos Nikolaides, EVROKO MP Dimitris Syllouris and Green’s MP Yiorgos Perdikis.
Tornaritis noted that during the investigation, former Cyprus Airways managers, board members, auditors and even former ministers will be called in to the meetings that will be held every Wednesday and Friday at 11am.
Next Friday’s meeting will determine who will be the first to testify.
The DISY MP pledged to remain impartial throughout the investigation. “For as long as this committee is in session, I will leave my party hat at the door.”
Evagorou was asked by reporters on a possible conflict of interest, since he served on the Cyprus Airways board in the past. The AKEL MP said that his term was a short one and that he will recuse himself from the investigation when it is time to look into the company’s dealings while he was member.
This is not the first time parliament has tried to look into CY’s dealings. In 2002 the Finance Committee also set up an ad hoc committee with a similar mandate but no definite conclusions were reached.
