Donations to social support body increased ninefold after Christodoulides’ election

The amount of money donated to the social support body increased almost ninefold after Nikos Christodoulides was elected president at the beginning of 2023, accountant-general Andreas Antoniades said on Wednesday.

He told the House institutions committee that in 2020, the body received €560,914 in donations, that in 2021, it received €368,091, and that in 2022, it received €260,100.

Nikos Christodoulides was then elected in February 2023, with his wife Philippa Karsera Christodoulides consequently appointed as the body’s chairwoman.

From that point, the amount of donations offered to the social support body skyrocketed, with €2,269,005 received in 2023 and €2,176,196 received in 2024.

Antoniades also told the committee that the body never received any cash donations and that all donations to it were made by transfers to the central bank.

After his intervention, committee chairman and Disy MP Demetris Demetriou said that he still expects to receive an “informed response” to a written request for further information about the body that he had sent to the treasury, adding that “not all aspects” of what he had raised had been covered by Antoniades on Wednesday.

In response, Antoniades said that he had requested the opinion of the legal service regarding some of the matters raised in Demetriou’s letter and said he had not offered responses to all matters given “the possibility and legality of disclosing information which may be relevant to the legislation on the protection of personal data”.

After the session, Akel MP Giorgos Loukaides said the matter has left Christodoulides “irreparably exposed”, and vented his frustration that “virtually none of the questions we had posed, mainly in the direction of the president, were answered”.

It had been widely expected that the list of names of donors to the social support body would be disclosed to the committee on Wednesday, but this did not happen.

“On behalf of Akel, I call on the president to finally proceed with acknowledging the institutional deviance which has occurred and assume responsibility,” Loukaides said.

The social support body had first been established in 2014 and was placed under the wing of then first lady Andri Anastasiades, before being passed on to First Lady Philippa Karsera Christodoulides when her husband became president in 2023.

It had initially been set up to offer financial assistance to disadvantaged students, but a video which was published on January 8 alleged, among other things, that cash donations to the body were used to circumvent campaign finance laws and curry favour with the government.

In light of the publication of the video, the incumbent first lady resigned from her role, with her husband saying on Monday that he was minded to completely abolish the body after the video came to light.

“I want to share with you that my first thought is to completely abolish the body. I hear some ideas to transfer it to the state scholarships foundation,” he told reporters.

The following day, the body’s management committee implored her to reconsider, arguing that her resignation “will negatively affect the continuation of the body’s work”.

However, she remained resolute in her decision, thanking the committee but telling it that her decision was “irrevocable”.

The government has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.