With 47 votes in favor and one against and the non-participation of EDEK in the voting, the Parliament gave the green light for the publication of the list of Yorkartzis. Averof Neophytou and the parliamentary group of the party will see the list from the website of the Parliament. AKEL, Ecologists, ELAM, Cooperation of Democratic Forces and Zacharias Koulias received a copy of the list after the voting.
At the beginning of the sitting, the Speaker of the Parliament Adamos Adamou noted the issue number 9 of the agenda that concerned the publication of the list Giorkatzi will be discussed first. Afterwards, DISY MP Annita Dimitriou read the Draft Decision of the Ad Hoc Committee, while the political leaders took the floor to take a position on the issue.
The attitudes of political leaders
The need for transparency, the fight against corruption and the restoration of the prestige of the Parliament was raised by the supporters of the publication of the list, while on the contrary arguments were put forward for incorrectness and attempt to cover up corruption and entanglement through the list, but also for its illegal publication. .
On behalf of DISY, the president of Averof Neophytou simply said that the position of the party will be expressed through his vote and that the list will be judged by society.
AKEL General Secretary Andros Kyprianou , after stating that the data given to the public with the list were not seriously processed, characterized them as contradictory and wrong and noted that individuals are being wronged. However, he said that with the publication of the list, this “heavy shadow” will leave the Parliament, in order to go to people who do not have the ability to abstain. He also said that the list does not include many other things such as preferential loans and issues related to passports.
He also said that despite what the Attorney General and the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection said, “we the bold ones”, as he said, are behaving in an unacceptable and irresponsible way and we are not interested in anyone being wronged. He also said that thousands of names will be given to the public regarding people who wonder why they are on the list. There is an added risk of disorientation for the phenomena of entanglement and corruption in Cyprus.
AKEL added that it alone cannot defend the credibility and responsibility of the Parliament, that is why it will vote in favor of the disclosure, even if everyone assumes their responsibilities.
At the same time, the Secretary General stigmatized the corruption, as he said, of the current Government, citing investigations of the European Commission for corruption in Cyprus, but also the statement of the European Advocate General who said that 10% of the future cases of the European Prosecutor's Office, may concern Cyprus.
He also referred to the speech of the President of the Republic on corruption, saying that as the President learns, he will say tonight that everyone else is to blame except himself. He added that he would appear innocent and undefiled, blaming the Parliament for not exercising effective control. He also referred to the involvement of the President's law firm in passport cases, free travel to the Seychelles and the escape from Cyprus of 37 million euros before the haircut of the deposits, as he mentioned.
The president of DIKO Nikolas Papadopoulos said that the Giorkatzi list was a black shadow over the credibility of the Parliament and the prestige of the body and today this shadow is being set aside. As things stand, he said, it should be made public, as it will help address all of these allegations that Parliament is hearing regarding concealment of names. He added, however, that people will be wronged by the publicity and many questions are raised about the accuracy of the data, because serviced loans and credit cards were included, as well as persons who were not politically exposed during the disputed period. At the same time, he said that the Central Bank should give answers to all this, whether the political expediency was negligent, otherwise it remains exposed.
Stating that the list should be made public, he wondered at the same time where the list of written off loans went and why the names left with the red loans of MPs and we were left with the list of Giorkatzi. He even wondered if the list was made by banks to protect those who favored and said that the list does not answer the question if anyone has been favored.
Regarding the speech of the President of the Republic, he said that he chooses to give a sermon and not a press conference to avoid annoying questions. He asked the President to make public all the decisions of the Minister that benefited him or his close environment. He also said that the Independent Authority for Dispute Resolution should not be appointed by the Government because it should control it.
The president of EDEK, Marinos Sizopoulos, stated that this list includes those you can imagine, from community advisors to everything and that the list includes people based on the debit balance of their credit card, such as himself. At the same time, he added, the list does not include people who may have been privileged to write off their loans, which is primarily what we need to know.
As he said, a full investigation is needed “to know exactly where we are and what is happening because we hear a lot and different”. He said that based on the information on the list, there was a politically exposed person who was written off 65% of the loan and the capital, not only the over-indebtedness, in which the guarantor was another politically exposed person and they are not on the list.
EDEK, he said, requested that a criminal investigation be conducted first for those who have prepared the specific list, on the basis of what logic they did it and for what purpose. He wondered if they did it to deceive or to cover up and why the Parliament does not take the decision to give the responsibility to the Legal Service to proceed with a criminal investigation.
“It simply came to our notice then. That is our goal. And not just to make it public. “I have no problem publishing it,” he noted. He also said that this list should have been updated and there should be a discussion on whether there is any information to remove exactly from the list of people who should be on the list.
The President of the Citizens' Alliance, George Lillikas, said that although he does not know how reliable this list is, it should be made public from the moment it became known. The non-disclosure, he said, lasted almost two years and left the MPs exposed, while the society was easily convinced that they had something to hide.
He also said that the Ad Hoc Committee on Loans to Politically Exposed Persons should appoint a Committee of Experts to conduct its own research and study to restore its credibility. We can not, as he said, be both judges and judges.
He also stated that the report of the Auditor General is pending, which was sent to the members of the Audit Committee of the Parliament and names persons. This list, he said, should be made public and he is preparing a draft decision to be made public. He also asked the Auditor General to make public his audit of the Co-operation.
The MP of the Ecologists 'Movement – Citizens' Cooperation, George Perdikis, said that today the Parliament is taking a big step in favor of transparency and accountability.
He also said that this list is not a list of criminal people but people who suffered to have an unfortunate relationship with the banking system. He added that the impression should not be created that the banks are innocent, but they are the ones who created the problem with their impunity and the lack of supervisory controls that were carried out, but also with the oligarchy, as he said, of the deputies.
He also demanded that other lists of 2013 and 2015 be made public and that a full investigation be conducted into how they were serviced and how some loans were written off.
At the same time, he stated that the publication of the Giorkatzi list is a big step for the Parliament, in favor of transparency, which will bring positive fruits for democracy. For this struggle, he added, there was also targeting and false findings and investigations and slander of MPs to stop asking for transparency.
The MP of the Solidarity Movement, Michalis Giorgallas, said that the Movement unreservedly supports the decision of the Plenary Session to publish the list of Giorkatzis as it is.
He added that after a thorough study of the opinions and legal advice submitted to the Ad hoc Committee, their concerns have been reassured and the way is now open for this List to be made public, in order to serve the justified demand of society for transparency and accountability. and on the other hand to restore the lost credibility and prestige of the institution of the House of Representatives.
He added that today is not the end but the beginning of another more serious course in the fight against corruption.
“As I have repeatedly stressed to the Ad hoc Committee, the position of Solidarity is to continue the investigation to identify the corrupt who used their dominant political position and capacity to write off debts to the banks.
“We also want the lists of corrupt loan write-offs,” he said.
Their demand, he said, is to identify politically corrupt people who have exercised political influence in order to achieve capital outflows abroad in dangerous times and to ensure zero interest rates and preferential facilities on their loans.
Democratic Forces Cooperation MP Angelos Votsis said that the three MPs are ready to vote again for the list and that the delay in its publication does not mean honor for anyone, as they left time to expose the Parliament and MPs.
He also said that another initiative is expected from the Auditor General who had stated that by early October 2020 the investigation would have been completed for 14 politically exposed persons who had their loans settled amicably and they have not seen them yet.
Democratic Forces Cooperation MP George Prokopiou welcomed the decision to make the list public and recalled that he had proposed making it the sixth oldest MP if no one had taken over the hierarchy before him.
On behalf of ELAM , MP Linos Papagiannis said that the party from the first day has clearly been in favor of the immediate publication of the list for reasons of transparency and to give the right to the people to know what the real picture is. He added that there may be cases that should not have been included in the list, but expressed confidence that the list is not only innocent and a significant number of those included have their nest soiled.
He also called it immoral if some people did not service their loans but paid their dues to their parties.
At the same time, he demanded that the other lists be submitted, such as the panama papers, the lists with loan write-offs and the lists with naturalizations, so that the political system regains its credibility.
“Independent” MP Anna Theologou was in favor of publishing the list.
How the publication will be done
As Mr. Adamou clarified, the Giorkatzi List will be made public as part of the minutes of the plenary session of the Parliament which will be posted on the website of the Parliament and will be accessible to the citizens. He noted, however, that the list will refer to the period which Ms. Giorkatzi had submitted to the House of Representatives without being updated. Under these circumstances, many of the data have already changed in relation to the Non-Performing Loans held by Politically Exposed Persons.
SEE ALSO:
That is why they said YES to the publication of the list. Finally, in the serial of the Giorkatzi list – Tomorrow again in Parliament One – one is revealed before the Giorkatzi list comes out
It is recalled that in the previous phase in which the publication of the Giorkatzi List was brought before the Parliament, several persons who were included gave explanations by publishing the data and statements of their loans.
The Draft Decision of the Ad Hoc Committee
Video from the sitting of the Plenary Session of the Parliament
