Audit service to check overtime payments of every Presidential palace employee

Every single employee at the Presidential palace will have their overtime payments examined by the audit service, following on from recent controversies surrounding payments made to deputy government spokesperson Doxa Komodromou, the audit office said on Thursday.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, audit service spokesman Marios Petrides said the files of 153 people, 141 civil servants and the 12 members of the government oversight committee (Piki) will be checked to ensure there was no foul play.

He said the aim is to find out “who is being paid overtime, why they are being paid overtime, and to what extent they are entitled to be paid overtime.”

While no timetable for the completion of investigations could be disclosed, Petrides confirmed that work on the matter had begun on Thursday.

He added that the investigations in question concern only employees of the current government.

The furore surrounding overtime payments came after Doxa Komodromou’s overtime payment requests were made public last week.

Komodromou’s appointment has been the subject of much scrutiny from the audit office from as far back as April, shortly after the new government came into power.

Auditor-general Odysseas Michailides had flagged up issues regarding the arrangement of Komodromou’s appointment to the government, given that she had not resigned from her previous position at the University of Cyprus and had instead been seconded to the government.

In a letter to President Nikos Christodoulides, he had called the arrangement “unlawful”. He later described Komodromou’s request for overtime pay as “inadmissible in nature” and welcomed her decision to withdraw the request last week.

The government withdrew its request for overtime payments to Komodromou on Monday and informed the university that it would have to claim the money back.