Paphos Mayor Savvas Vergas is expected to appear in court on Thursday, charged with counts of mismanagement of public funds, in particular at the local sewerage board which he chairs ex-officio.
Vergas was arrested late on Wednesday for the third time in the past two months, only this time, two other officials also faced similar charges: the sewerage board’s executive manager Eftychios Malekides and former municipal councilor Georgos Michaelides of the ruling DISY party.
The revelations came to the fore after allegations of misappropriation of funds at the sewerage board by internal whistle blowers. Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides subsequently ordered an investigation only to discover that millions of euros of public funds were lost in the project that has yet to be completed.
The sewerage network that covers the wider area around Paphos town and leads into the villages and resorts popular to tourists and expatriate Britons (Chlorakas, Kissonerga, Lemba, Kamares, Peyia, Coral Bay, etc.) was supposed to cost 78 mln euros, but current estimates have shot up to 109 mln, according to reports.
Some communities are also up in arms over a refusal to contribute their share to the sewerage network, seeing as the system is incomplete and citizens have been asked to pay in advance for a project they have yet to see materialise.
Paphos Mayor Vergas, who has been told by his own Democratic Party (DIKO) to resign, together with all other parties, has so far abstained from municipal council meetings.
He faces two other charges. One is related to threatening SMS text messages sent from a mobile phone he initially bought to several people involved in a land rezoning deal, including Aristo Developers founder and former Bank of Cyprus Chairman Theodoros Aristodoemiou, who is at the centre of the allegations. The other case involves the organisers of a summer concert by music heart throb Sakis Rouvas, proceeds from which were promised to the town’s welfare fund and were never realised. The company is in the name of the husband of Vergas’ PR assistant, whose relatives are also involved in the Aristo case.
Finally, Vergas has been in the spotlight again over media revelations that he built a tennis court next to his house, without a permit and on land deemed as a ‘green area’. The only access to the tennis court is through Vergas’ home front door!
