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The Minister of Finance, Konstantinos Petridis, speaks about a personal attack and lies against him by the Parliamentary Representative of AKEL, George Loukaidis.
“Mr. Loukaidis”, states in his statement today, “based on my intervention in the Audit Committee where I was summoned regarding the report of the Auditor General for the OAU, he carried out a personal attack against me, characterizing me as an opponent of the GESS”. “At the meeting,” he said, “I did nothing less and nothing more than agree with the Auditor General 's findings and support his recommendations. According to Mr. Loukaidis, is the Auditor General also an opponent of GESS? ».
“Mr. Loukaidis”, he adds, “falsely speaks of a unilateral decision of YPOIK to deprive € 103 million from GESY. Nothing more untrue. The € 103 million concerns health expenditures (purchases of medicines, referrals of patients to the private sector), which are currently covered by the Ministry of Health, which according to the legislation, must be recovered from the global budget of GESS. For this reason, the Ministry of Health, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance, offset the state sponsorship with these expenses, recovering the said amount. A practice that is widely applied in the public sector, in accordance with the relevant legislation. Both the Attorney General and the Auditor General agree with this, who in fact includes it in his recommendations and has made a public statement. It is something that ensures that the taxpayer is not doubled, both through contributions and through the coverage of health expenditures from the state budget, to the detriment of other social and development policies. In this way, the Health Insurance Organization (HEI) will cover, as it owes, all the health expenses from the resources provided by the society and the state and will avoid wastages and agreements unprofitable for the society “.
“The strong political position I expressed”, he adds, “was the faithful implementation of the GESS legislation and the respect of the global budget, in order to ensure the viability of the GESS, as were the majority positions of all other parties except of Mr. Loukaidis “.
“It causes”, he notes, “the questioning of Mr. Loukaidis' obsession to ignore the non-implementation of the GESS legislation, the abuses that gnaw at the global budget to the detriment of the patients, and the lack of control that is observed in the OAY. “It is this attitude that is essentially a war to the detriment of the GESS and its viability and could be seen as serving other economic and partisan interests.” “Which is a war in the GESS but the denial of its implementation and the abuses”.
“The government,” he argues, “has strengthened the health sector more than any other government in the past. Both with the implementation of GESS and with the upgrade of the hospitals. During the crisis, YPOIK allocated more than € 150 million in addition to the health system to deal with the pandemic, which did not affect the finances of GESS in any way, since during the same period the OAU suspended any payments to public hospitals. At the same time, the Council of Ministers decided that an amount of € 50 million would be paid to the budget of OAY if it was judged that the finances of GESS were affected. The data, however, speak for themselves. The cash/surpluses of the Organization at the end of 2021 exceeded € 300 million “.
“It is commonly accepted,” he says, “and it is acknowledged in detail in the Auditor General's Report that revenues during the implementation period of the GESS were much higher than expected, due to the better performance of the Cypriot economy as a result of sound economic policies.” which we followed, which does not justify any explosion in health spending. The Organization, not following rational practices of managing its resources, not carrying out the necessary controls, has led to excessive expansion of health expenditures in excess of 40%, endangering the viability of the Plan “.
“I assure the citizens”, he continues, “that the Government will act responsibly and will demand the full implementation of the legislation for proper implementation of the GESS, avoiding practices that promote abuses, tax evasion and inadmissible policies that strengthen the viability of the GESS”. “
” Only in this way, “he concludes,” will we protect this important social conquest that we have managed to implement as a Government. Opponents of GESS or those who want to use GESS for other reasons of course disagree. Mr. Loukaidis should address there “.
Pamporidis angry reaction
The former Minister of Health, George Pamporidis, reacted with rage and anger to what is revealed and concerns the operation of the GESS, and with his announcement he “shoots” against the “saviors of society” and complains that institutions that were supposed to guard this conquest focus on “Tree” and ostentatiously ignore the “forest”.
On the occasion of what was said yesterday in the Parliament and the Audit Committee for abuses and not only in the GESS, George Pamporidis points out that he is watching, with disappointment, the new attempt of the “known saviors of society” to compete for who will kill the GESS once again. I also see, he continues, with great sadness, institutions that the state has placed as guardians and protectors of this great conquest of the people, focusing on the “tree” and ostentatiously ignoring the “forest”
In his written statement, Mr. Pamporidis indicates that, “the GESS is not numbers and cold accounting operations of dubious validity. GESS is the largest social benefit to the Cypriot citizen. It is the button of every one of our fellow citizens who suffers and is tormented by the timeless failure of the State to offer free quality health services, something that every European citizen has enjoyed for years. The GESS is the expression of social solidarity in a State where individualism is evolving into a scourge against the many and the weakest. “
The duty of all the organs of the State, the former minister continues, “is to have as a starting point of their every action, the concern and care for the strengthening of the GESS and not to look for reasons and excuses to undermine it. The problems are many but they were expected by all of us for his first years “.
He uploaded his statement on his personal twitter account.
# GESS is much larger than numbers and accounting transactions of dubious validity. GESY is all of us.
(Press Release 18 Feb. 2022) #KatoTaHeria pic.twitter.com/CjbYwpjKek– George Pamboridis (@GPamboridis) February 18, 2022
Pamporidis angry reaction: The “saviors” are competing for who will kill GESS
OAY: YPOIK unilaterally cut 150 million from GESSY
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