A former interior ministry official appears to have been in cahoots with the companies which ultimately won the contracts for the Paphos and Koshi landfills, a witness in the ongoing trial said in court on Thursday.
Thasos Neocleous, former director of technical audit at the audit office, was testifying for the prosecution in the trial, which involves the overcharging of municipal authorities for waste management services and the alleged bribery of officials.
Neocleous said that Yiorgos Koullapis, formerly with the interior ministry, had singlehandedly overseen the entire tender process, whose purpose was to draw up the specifications for the future landfill in Paphos.
That tender was eventually awarded to Enviroplan SA, the company acting as consultant for the state on a number of waste management projects.
Both the company and its director at the time, Theofanis Lolos, are facing charges of bribery and corruption.
According to the witness, a subsequent audit of the tenders process for the construction of the actual Paphos landfill project revealed that the Greek company Helector received an ‘excessively high score’ that effectively knocked the other bidders out of the competition.
The competition was then scrapped and a new one held, where again Helector won, although this time its asking price was significantly lower than previously.
The suspicious activity was noted in the auditor-general’s annual report for 2003.
The audit office’s 2004 report also attributed responsibility to Koullapis for the delays in calling a tender for the construction of a biological waste treatment plant.
Eventually, a no-bid contract for the project was awarded to Helector for 1.5 million Cyprus pounds (€2.56m).
The same report also highlighted delays in calling the tender for the construction of an extra lane leading to Polis Chrysochous, Paphos.
Once again, Helector secured a no-bid contract to the tune of 525,000 Cyprus pounds.
Other interior ministry officials have already pleaded guilty to taking kickbacks in exchange for treating Helector favourably.
Also on trial are Demetris Patsalides (Paphos municipality’s former financial director), Michalis Pantis (civil servant), Antonis Kourouzides (pensioner), Stelios Papadopoulos (civil servant), Andreas Louroujiatis (former mayor of Larnaca), Nicolas Koullapis (doctor), Enviroplan SA, Theofanis Lolos (chemical engineer), Helector Cyprus Ltd, and N.E. Midoriaco Ltd.
Former Paphos mayor Savvas Vergas, Helector’s former CEO Demetris Giannakopoulos, interior ministry official Christakis Petrou, engineer Imad Bagle and former Paphos Sewerage Board director Eftichios Malekkides have already pleaded guilty.
The trial resumes on January 9.
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