Newsroom
For most people, €2.4 million is not an amount easily overlooked.
Yet an unnamed former minister in the Christodoulides government failed to include bank accounts containing roughly that amount in official asset declarations filed when entering and leaving office, according to the chairman of Parliament’s institutions committee.
The issue before Parliament is whether the former minister submitted a false or misleading asset declaration, an offense for which penalties are provided under the law.
The former minister has acknowledged the omission, described it as a mistake, and submitted a corrected declaration for 2023, journalist Katia Savva said on Alpha’s current affairs program, “Alpha Update.”
Savva said she contacted the former minister directly to ask what had happened. According to the response she received, the official provided explanations, made the necessary corrections, and accepted responsibility for the error.
The former minister has not been publicly identified.
DISY lawmaker Dimitris Dimitriou, who chairs the parliamentary institutions committee, said the undeclared assets involved bank accounts held both in Cyprus and abroad.
He said the accounts were missing from the declaration submitted in 2023, when the official became a minister, as well as the declaration filed after leaving office.
When initially asked whether the missing amount was €1.1 million, Dimitriou said it was higher.
“It is about €2.4 million,” he said.
What is being examined
Despite the size of the omission, Dimitriou stressed that the case does not currently involve an allegation of illegal enrichment.
The issue before Parliament is whether the former minister submitted a false or misleading asset declaration, an offense for which penalties are provided under the law.
Any question of possible tax evasion would be a separate matter for the Tax Commissioner to examine under different legislation.
The Tax Commissioner can also request further explanations or order the submission of a supplementary declaration, Dimitriou said.
That distinction matters. Authorities are not saying the former minister obtained the money illegally. They are examining why millions of euros in bank accounts were missing from declarations specifically designed to make the finances of senior public officials transparent.
The property explanation
The case also involves a property acquired while the former minister was in office.
Dimitriou said there was no indication of unexplained enrichment connected to the purchase because the reduction recorded in one of the bank accounts matched the value of the property.
In other words, the available figures appear to show where the money used for the purchase came from.
The unanswered question is why the accounts themselves were not properly listed in the first place.
Why it matters
Asset declarations are intended to allow authorities to compare what politicians and senior officials own before, during, and after holding public office. They are supposed to expose unexplained changes in wealth and strengthen public trust.
For ordinary taxpayers who are expected to report their income and financial details accurately, the idea that a public official could leave €2.4 million out of official paperwork will inevitably raise uncomfortable questions, even if the omission is ultimately accepted as an error.
Correcting a declaration may explain where the money came from, but Parliament must now determine whether it also settles the question of why the information was missing.
Until then, Cyprus is left with an unnamed former minister, millions of undeclared euros and a “mistake” that is proving rather difficult to overlook.
