President Nikos Christodoulides said on Tuesday he has zero tolerance for corruption.

“When the Cypriot people decide that I will not be President of the Republic, the most important thing for me is to leave as I came, [with] clean hands,” he said in an interview with PlusTV station.

“As long as I am President, I will make mistakes that will allow criticism on all issues except transparency and corruption,” he added.

He added that constitutional changes are underway to strengthen the competent authorities dealing with financial crime.

“We are moving forward with a change in specific articles of the Constitution, it will be passed by the Council of Ministers in the next two weeks so that we can give even more power to the investigating authorities,” he said referring to the police, MOKAS, the Tax Commissioner, the and the customs department.

“Now there is a team, there is a Task Force, which brings results”.

He said serious crimes are being committed without even considering the economic dimension of them.

“How is it possible for a compatriot of ours to drive a car worth €100,000 but declare a monthly salary of €1,000 euros? We never identified this, we did not have this Task Force, and the Cypriot authorities saw that it was needed. So the help of the Americans was important,” he added, countering criticism that the government had turned to the FBI for advice.

In March this year the FBI submitted a report to the government that it had carried out on money laundering and sanctions.

On tax reforms that are currently being drawn up, he said the government had dared, after 23 years, to proceed with new measures.

“It’s priority is to support Cypriot businesses,” he said, citing as an example the reduction of the defence tax from 17 per cent to 5 per cent.

“We want to support Cypriot businesses, because, and I want to repeat, this government is one of the most business-friendly. The second priority is the family and the middle class, which have always been the backbone of the Cypriot economy and society,” he added.

His government, he said, is also working to reduce the number of deputy mayors after local government reform drawn up by the previous government resulted in expediencies being served at the expense of citizens.

“I can’t have 12, 13, 14 deputy mayors in a small area and in Nicosia to have 3 or 4. It is not possible for us to have made changes in parliament in order to serve expediencies and at the end of the day for the Cypriot people to pay for it. Therefore, with the local government, we will proceed with changes, and I hope that parliament will respond,” he said.

During the interview, he described his government as “centre-right”, which implements its election programme on the basis of social liberalism, and a “free economy”.

He added that in two and a half years of government, more than 50 per cent of the election programme has been implemented, in addition to many other things that were not included in it.

He referred to the establishment of the secretariat for monitoring government work and the fact that it comes out publicly, outlining what the government will do in the next year.

“That is, I expose myself to criticism, accountability, telling people what I’m going to do to watch me. So I’m not afraid to say what we’re going to do. I am happy because the results of our policies have begun and are visible,” he concluded.