‘No willingness’ to return parties’ unspent election funding

Millions of euros are owed to the state by political parties that failed to return unspent election funding, it emerged on Wednesday, with no willingness from parties to return the money to the state coffers, the audit service confirmed to the Cyprus Mail.

Eight political parties, current and now defunct, owe almost €2 million to the state for the 2018 presidential election, an audit service report stated.

Another €576,000 is also pegged to be returned to the state from three parties for parliamentary elections in 2021.

Asked about the issue by the Cyprus Mail, audit service spokesman Marios Petrides confirmed: “There is no willingness to get back that money.”

The money comes from stipends given from the state budget to parties for elections but which remained unused for the purpose.

For the 2018 presidential election, eight of the parties pocketed the money given by the state instead of giving it to the candidates they supported.

Disy owes €813,22, while Diko owes €383,955 and Akel owes €206,402.

Another four parties, Edek, Symmachia Politon (now defunct), Solidarity Movement (defunct), the Greens and nationalist Elam, all owe around €100,000.

Petrides explained that on receipt of the funds, the parties are meant to give them to the candidate they support, however this never happened.

The total owed by all eight of the parties amounts to €2,091,200.

Another three parties also owe the state money back for elections to parliament in 2021, namely Diko, Solidarity Movement and Symmachia Politon.

Diko owes €47,321, while Solidarity owes €251,213 and Symmachia owes €277,429.

Commenting on what can be done to remedy the situation, Petrides said that for parties that still exist, their current stipends could be offset, by taking from their current allowance what it owed to the state.

However, for defunct parties the situation becomes more complex, with one solution being to examine the property or money held by leaders or officials of the former parties, and having the state take those to recover the missing funds.

Petrides said that this would have to be done by the accountant-general, but there seems to be a lack of willingness to do anything on the issue.

The audit service report said: “We also note that the argument that has been put forward that the Republic has not suffered a monetary loss and has not incurred additional costs relates to 2021 (for which indeed any recovery will be used for redistribution to other parties), but not for 2018 for which the Republic has suffered a financial loss.”

Also, according to the report, the finance ministry and the audit service have had several exchanges about the issue, with the ministry pegging the legal service and the accountant-general to seek the funds, something has not been done.

The report added that according to the law, political parties that receive government sponsorship must submit, no later than three months after the end of the financial year, to the House speaker, audited accounts of the amount of the sponsorship.

“In March 2023, we asked the House of Representatives to inform us whether all or which political parties that received sponsorship in 2021 and 2022 submitted the required accounts as specified above,” the audit report said. 

The report said that the House informed them that procedures had been initiated to remind political parties receiving government sponsorship of their statutory obligation to comply with their statutory obligation to submit audited accounts, albeit late, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023 and subsequent financial years and instructions have been given for continuous monitoring of the situation.

“This obligation falls on the political parties and not on the services of parliament, which cannot be held accountable for the omissions of the parties,” the report said.

The report recommended that a condition should be set to have the parties receiving these stipends, submit their accounts before the grant is given, as a manner of complying with the law.