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The Special Report of the Auditor General for the Cyprus Radio Foundation for 2020, and specifically for the year ended 31.12.2019 (including issues that arose and were examined until December 2021), was examined today by the Parliamentary Audit Committee, with & nbsp; Chairman of the Board of RIK, Michalis Michael, to express his respect for the work of the Auditor General, Odysseas Michailidis, despite the disagreements and tensions and the Auditor General to refer, among other things, to the increase in RIK's salary by 28%, but and nominally in specific cases.
In his statement, the Auditor General, Odysseas Michailidis stated that the value of the assets of the Pension Fund of RIK “has faded”, because the Fund has invested in securities which have lost their value and do not have a sufficient reserve, with the result that RIK adds 7-8 million euros every year for pensions.
In addition, Mr. Michailidis said that dozens of associates of RIK, scale A4-A7, were upgraded to A8-A10-A12 within a year, referring to “waste of public money”. “Payroll costs are estimated to have risen from 15.5m euros to 20m euros, an increase of 28%,” he said.
the Auditor General.
At the same time, Mr. Michailidis referred to the case of a journalist, who was hired by RIK in August 2021, after a letter from the former Chairman of the Board, Andreas Frangou, on May 24, 2021 to the Minister of Interior, Nikos Nouris, where a proposal is made for of that particular journalist. The Auditor General spoke of “intervention by incompetent bodies”, referring to the former and current Chairman of the Board RIK, Michalis Michael.
Mr. Michael, in his statement, said that the report of the Auditor General “includes inaccuracies and misleading positions”. He replied that he had intervened to speed up the recruitment process of the journalist in question, which lasted a year and a half, as he said.
show after the end of “TET-A-TET” presented by Tassos Tryfonos. “We asked for a journalist/presenter for a similar program and expedited proceedings,” he said.
The Auditor General also referred to the case of Savvas Aristodimos, an official of the RIK, for whom there were complaints of misconduct and who had been seconded to the GTP, but did not appear there, protesting against his secondment. Eventually, he returned to RIK and was promoted.
Mr Aristodimou, who was present at the commission, described his deployment to the GIP as “illegal”. He added that, being the president of the EURIK guild, he had differences with the former General Manager of RIK, Michalis Maratheftis, hence his secondment. He stated that he had filed a lawsuit against Mr. Maratheftis and Mr. Frangos. Press Office of the President of the Republic. His posting is not governed by the law of 2019, he stressed. “The man is a double-decker, according to the Audit Office, although he is not paid by RIK”, he added.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the Auditor General's report contained “several inaccuracies”, adding that there were 181 permanent posts and 258 temporary associates. An attempt was made, as he said, to equate the extraordinary with the permanent because the extraordinary were wronged. He said that 330 employees are now serving in RIK, and the goal is to reduce them to 260. “We have modernized the structure of RIK as much as possible”, he said characteristically.
Michalis Michael stated that the RIK is also controlled by an external auditor appointed by the Auditor General. Mr. Michailidis replied that if Mr. Michael considers that the private audit firm is not doing the proper procedure, he should terminate it.
The Auditor General then called “an achievement of the Ministry of Interior” the increase in RIK's salary by 28%, which was done “for the sake of RIK staff”. In addition, he stated that the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is lying about the opinion of Poly Polybius on the issue of similar benefits of RIK employees. The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that he felt offended by the position of Mr. Michailidis and asked the Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Audit Committee, Chrysi Pantelidis, to ask the Auditor General to withdraw the characterization “liar”.
In his statement, after the end of the session of the Committee, the AKEL MP, Christos Christofidis, spoke about a distorted perception that exists in RIK that what the Government says is important and what the opposition says is not. “In recent years, there has been an attempt to get key people in the DISY's confidence,” he said, referring to an “attempt to fully partisanize public radio and television.”
He added that he would criticize public and democratic deficits. of RIK and expressed the hope that there will be a change in the approach of the leadership of RIK so that the Foundation can properly perform its role.
DISY MP Onoufrios Koullas said that in previous years there was a financial consolidation of RIK, with the reduction of the annual sponsorship. “But there was also an administrative consolidation in the RIK and this was a demand of all political forces and workers' representatives,” he said. Regarding the management of human resources, Mr. Koullas noted.
Auditor General. He added that he would turn to points in the Auditor General's Report that need to be corrected, noting that there are also issues that concern him in the way they are presented.
“It would be good to avoid characterizations that reduce persons and situations “, He stated. “A very good discussion took place, which we will take very seriously,” he concluded.
