POLICE investigators will have a meeting with representatives from the Attorney General’s office on Wednesday, to decide how to proceed over a suspect land deal in Paphos involving the well-known land development company Aristo Developers, a police source told the Cyprus Mail.
The meeting signals the conclusion of an AG probe on the deal. The AG’s office spent the last two months looking into whether any prosecutions were warranted, following an investigation on the matter by the police.
Aristo Developers is one the largest land development companies on the island.
The case involves allegations that Aristo, working together with people inside the Paphos municipality, arranged for a favourable deal when they filed for a permit to demarcate 177 plots in the Skali area of Paphos.
The application was approved, but according to the complaint filed to the police, it later emerged that new plans were added to the file and the previous ones had been annulled.
With the new plans, the company took back some 5,000 square metres, which had been previously earmarked as green areas.
The value of the land was estimated at €2 million.
The company denied any wrongdoing, saying the municipality got the calculations wrong. It claimed that the municipality had asked for new plans to be submitted and the discrepancy came about because the land area was bigger than what was recorded on the title deeds.
The changes in the demarcation of green areas were made at the behest of the water department to protect a stream.
GOVT (and all its tentacles) BANKS, a few big DEVELOPERS, LAWYERS one happy family….until the link between these is severed Cyprus will forever be in trouble.
…”The company denied any wrongdoing, saying the municipality got the calculations wrong”… Now correct me if I’m wrong but the municipality gets its figures from Land Registry, Land Registry is considered the ultimate authority on Lands and Surveys and it is Land Registry who use equipment and satellite technology to survey perimeter lines and angular points to an accuracy of a centimetre or so. I have had it done and was told mine is 5435m². So with that accuracy being applied are we being asked to believe those same surveyors made an error of some 5000m² or have I got that wrong. The earmarked green area is just that and at 5000m² just cannot be missed, it is large. I’m confused!
As to whether or not any prosecution will arise from this investigation or not well, that’s another question. Of course not, the investigation and rhetoric is for public consumption and it uses up police time. I do hope I am forced to eat my words if only to restore my faith in our overstretched and misled police force – but forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.
Coming from the man that ran BOC and resigned just before the collapse. His an honourable gentleman let’s take his word.