Former Central Bank (CBC) governor Athanasios Orphanides has informed the House Ethics Committee that he could only take part in a scheduled session next month via teleconferencing, something that MPs oppose.
The committee had invited Orphanides to attend its November 3 meeting, part of their probe into individual issues that contributed to the eventual collapse of the island’s banking system.
Orphanides, who was governor at the time, was invited to shed light on the acquisition by Bank of Cyprus of Russia’s Uniastrum Bank in 2008.
BoC bought Uniastrum for a little under €400m and sold it recently for €7m.
In an email to the committee last Friday, Orphanides, who teaches at MIT and lives in the USA, told MPs that he could only take part in the session remotely.
Orphanides said his experience and knowledge of the CBC’s operation and the European decision making framework could contribute substantively to the investigation of certain aspects of the catastrophe that took place after he was replaced by Panicos Demetriades.
The former governor said it was with regret that he has not seen any serious investigation into the CBC’s actions after his departure, including how the now defunct Laiki amassed some €9bln in emergency liquidity, and the role of various consultants hired by the supervisor at the time.
And this despite the reports concerning the loss of billion of euros that “led to the destruction of the country’s economy.”
The committee decided to convey Orphanides’ letter to the attorney-general telling him that he possessed information that could be useful in the probe into the banking collapse.
Regarding Orphanides’ presence before the committee, chairman Nicos Nicolaides said MPs were not prepared to start examining issues through teleconferencing.
It was not normal practice, he said.
“The matter of Mr Orphanides’ presence before the Ethics Committee will be discussed on Thursday during the (party) leaders meeting,” Nicolaides said. “The Ethics Committee’s decision is that it will not get into the process of teleconferencing.”
AKEL MP Aristos Damianou said parliament’s regulations and the constitution were not “a la carte.”
“If a new modern method of exercising legislative oversight is adopted, for which I personally have serious reservations whether it serves democracy … it cannot be for one person only.”
