KYPROULLA was back in the international news last week but not under its new brand as a squeaky-clean regional pillar of safety and security, but as the base of the corporate service MeritServus which helped Russian billionaire and former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich avoid paying millions in taxes.
The MeritServus managing director Demetris Ioannides was sanctioned by the UK government in 2023 for establishing “murky offshore structures” for Abramovich. The scheme to avoid paying tax on his five luxury yachts (total estimated value in the region of €1.2 billion), was discovered in the 40,000 files and 72,000 emails leaked by MeritServus that led to the Cyprus Confidential investigation, undertaken by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The BBC, which is participating in the investigation, reported that the files showed how Abramovich’s advisors “helped him avoid paying huge tax bills on the yachts’ running costs in EU waters by using companies to hire them out to himself or other companies he controlled”.
The five yachts were leased to a company in Cyprus called Blue Ocean Yacht Management, “which chartered them on to handful of companies in the British Virgin Islands that appeared independent – but which were all in fact controlled by Mr Abramovich,” said the BBC.
Under EU law VAT is paid on all spending for keeping yachts in service such as staff, port fees, fuel, maintenance etc. Yachts used for commercial purposes are exempt from VAT, which was why the phony leasing structures were set up.

THE BIGGEST surprise in these reports was the revelation that the Kyproulla tax authority, which has neither the manpower nor the expertise to get to the bottom of the tax avoidance schemes devised by corporate service providers for their ultra-rich clients, somehow found out what Abramovich’s advisors were up to.
The government had been alerted by Germany where one of the yachts had been sent for maintenance and the German authorities discovered the Blue Ocean Yacht Management’s scheme to avoid paying VAT. As a result, in 2012 our tax authority ordered it to pay €14 million in tax debts from 2005 to 2010. Abramovich’s company appealed against the decision, but the tax authority rejected the appeal in August 2013 and demanded payment.
In theory, the money should have been paid, even though the company planned to take the tax authority to the administrative court to challenge the decision. Normally, when companies (with the exception of those owning football clubs) fail to pay VAT debts, the government would send its officials to confiscate company assets.
Abramovich’s company, according to reliable sources, never paid. You would have expected that, with the economy in meltdown and the state desperate for cash at the time, some effort would have been made to enforce the law and recoup the €14m.
Finance minister at the time, Harris Georgiades, failed to push for payment, but ultimately the decision for the blatantly preferential treatment of Abramovich most probably came from the autocratic ruler of that time.

ACCORDING to our establishment’s information, during the autocratic 10-year rule of Preznikone, there was no attempt to make Abramovich’s company pay the cash.
When the administrative court issued its ruling in favour of the state in 2018, ruling that Blue Ocean’s application claiming it did not have to pay tax was “unfounded”, the company should have paid its tax bill. Instead, it filed an appeal at the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court dismissed the case in March 2024, after the lawyer representing Blue Ocean asked for permission to withdraw the appeal because she had lost contact with the firm. Blue Ocean was dissolved last July.
Meanwhile a report about the matter carried by OCCRP said the Chryses Demetriades law firm which represented Blue Ocean told it that it had “no information” about whether the company had paid its tax debt. I suspect that if it had paid, it would not have been kept a secret.

ANOTHER beneficiary of Preznikone’s autocratic rule has turned on poor old Prezniktwo for quite rightly refusing to give him a third stint as our ambassador to Greece. Kyriacos Kenevezos, a Diko loser, who was given the most sought-after diplomatic post by Nik I, as a form of rusfetological charity, is reportedly going around Athens circles bad-mouthing Nik II.
Former ambassador and perm sec at the foreign ministry, Alexandros Zenon, could not tolerate this shabby behaviour and posted his feelings on Facebook. “Before the elections he ‘supported’ Mr Christodoulides. After the elections he was begging him to renew (illegally) for a third five-year term his posting in Athens, with a monthly salary of €11,000, free housing, car and chauffeur, domestic help, allowances etc, etc.” he wrote and added:
“The president quite correctly did not renew his posting. So now he is wandering in Athens with the title ‘honorary ambassador’ undermining the government and president of his country, giving lessons in patriotism.” What did he expect Kenevezos to give lessons in? Meritocracy? Patriotism is all he knows.

THE DARLING of our political class, former US Senator Bob Menendez – also known as ‘Gold Bar Bob’ – was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Wednesday, after being found guilty in July for bribery, fraud, extortion and acting as an agent of a foreign country.
It was something of an embarrassment for Kyproulla which had treated Menendez as a hero awarding him the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III in 2021. It was strange that he was given this honour, considering that in 2015 he was indicted on multiple counts of corruption, but got off after the trial resulted in a mistrial. Perhaps Nik I recognised a soul mate and wanted to honour him.
Nevertheless, Menendez consistently supported Greek Cypriot positions and had a leading role in the effort to lift the US arms embargo on Kyproulla. The question nobody is asking is whether Menendez believed in the justness of our cause or whether he was won over by a few bars of gold and other generous gifts from the Greek lobby in the US.
Although the government has no plans to take back the Grand Cross, Paphos municipality has already stripped him of honorary citizenship of the town it had bestowed on him four years ago. This must have hurt more than the prison sentence.

SOMETIMES you wonder whether the presidential advisors are asked to go through dictionaries to find fancy words that could be used to impress the less educated members of the public.
The latest offering is “emblematic”. Prezniktwo wrote the day before his presentation on Wednesday of the government plans for 2025, that he would “present our priorities and our emblematic policies”. There would be “emblematic reforms” we were told during the presentation, which some newspapers referred to as the ‘State of the Union’ address.
One thing grabbed my attention from the state of the union address. The Prez spoke about the “grand but attainable target of transforming Cyprus into a producer of cutting-edge defence systems”. Whether the defence systems will be emblematic is another matter.

KYPROULLA governments have often been accused of creating ‘jobs for the boys’ – jobs that do not involve much work but pay a good wage for loyal but unemployable party members. They cannot all be appointed ambassadors to Greece.
To show its commitment to gender equality, the government has now introduced ‘jobs for the girls’. On Tuesday there will be a news conference by the Cyprus Sports Organisation (Koa) and the Office of the Commissioner for Gender Equality on the occasion of the “creation of ambassador for the equality of genders in sport”.
At the event the first ambassador for the equality of gender in sport will be presented. There was no mention in the invitation for the event of what the ambassador, who is a female, would be doing to promote gender equality in sport, but I suspect not very much.

FINDING new roles is one of the most emblematic activities of this government. The other day I heard on the radio that the Prez had set up a ‘committee for the supervision of halloumi’ and made the president of the chamber of commerce, Keve, its president. The man was on the radio explaining how his committee is dealing with the warring halloumi factions and the difficulties he faces in getting them to reach an agreement on the milk ratios. Soon, we will ask the UN to help us solve the halloumi problem.

I WAS astonished to read the other day that yet another golf course is set to open in the summer. A press release said, “Limassol Greens, a groundbreaking championship gold course, is set to open at the end of Summer 2025, marking a significant milestone in Cyprus’ emergence as a premier international golf destination.”
Our Kyproulla is becoming a semi desert, farmers are justifiably protesting because the water allocated to farming is being constantly reduced by the authorities, record tourist arrivals are putting added strain on water resources, and we are creating more water-guzzling golf courses? Who takes these insane decisions?

WATCHED the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown last weekend and I cannot recommend it highly enough to people who still go to the cinema. It is great movie that even young people who have never heard of the coolest and smartest pop singer of all time would enjoy.