The dispute between Attorney General George Savvides and Auditor General Odysseas Michaelides, which led to the sacking of the latter for inappropriate conduct by the Supreme Constitutional Court, had gone on for years.
It started in 2020, soon after the appointment of Savvides to the post when the Auditor General began an investigation into the citizenship by investment scheme, for which the Anastasiades government was being strongly criticised.
Michaelides publicly complained because Savvides refused to give him access to specific case files, justifying that by saying an official inquiry led by former Supreme Court judge Myron Nikolatos was in progress.
Michaelides took this as a restriction of his attempt to carry out his own investigation, even though Savvides had asked him to wait for the completion of the Nikolatos inquiry, after which the case files he was demanding would be handed over to him.
Michaelides ignored Savvides and ploughed on with his own investigation, publishing an audit report and slamming the legal service for restricting access to five case files. His investigations claimed there were significant discrepancies in the issuance of Cypriot citizenship to wealthy foreign investors and implicated several government officials.
Another significant flashpoint occurred during Michaelides’ probe into the University of Cyprus, specifically regarding rector Tasos Christofides and the allegedly preferential hiring by the university of his daughter.
The conflict intensified when the audit service tweeted that Christofides had failed to disclose his daughter’s employment, prompting the rector to respond, accusing Michaelides of dragging his family into the matter.
Christofides clarified that his daughter worked at the Biobank centre of excellence not the medical school, and stressed that there was no conflict of interest. Nevertheless, Michaelides doubled down, stating that Christofides should have revealed his daughter’s salary for transparency.
The spat was eventually referred to the Attorney General, who saw the Auditor General’s involvement as inappropriate interference in matters not directly linked to his office’s auditing responsibilities.
The issue of multiple state pensions being paid to individuals still in office was another highlight in the row between Michaelides and Savvides.
Citing laws from 1977 and 1980, the Auditor General said it was illegal for individuals to receive both a state salary and a pension simultaneously, adding that there were laws requiring pensions to be suspended when a person takes up a new state position.
He ignored, however, the legal opinion that suspending payment of state pensions would be unconstitutional, issued by the former attorney-general Costas Clerides, in 2017. Savvides’ opinion was the same but Michaelides claimed that Savvides was defending the interests of the deputy attorney-general Savvas Angelides, who would be eligible for a state pension as a former minister in 10 years while remaining a state official.
Earlier this year Michaelides issued orders to the treasury to stop paying pensions to state officials but was ignored by the accountant general who followed the advice of the Attorney General. In response, the audit office claimed that the Attorney General did not have the authority to unilaterally declare something constitutional or not. He was trying to over-rule a decision by the Attorney General, whose job it is to issue legal advice to state offices.
The final showdown took place in 2023, when the Anti-Corruption Authority acquitted Angelides of corruption accusations, conveyed to the authority by Michaelides. Even after the decision, Michaelides maintained that the findings of the authority showed there had been conflict of interest and that Angelides was guilty of corruption.
Following Angelides’ exoneration, Savvides slammed Michaelides for the disparagement of the Legal Service and the relentless personal attacks on the deputy attorney-general, arguing that the Auditor General was overstepping the bounds of his authority. He accused Michaelides of painting a negative picture of him and his office before the investigation had even been completed.
This proved to be the final straw for Savvides. In April he filed an application for the termination of Michaelides’ services for inappropriate conduct.
