First Lady Philippa Karsera Christodoulides announced on Sunday her decision to step down from the management committee of the Independent Social Support Agency.
In a written statement on her social media account on Facebook, she says that in the last 24 hours, her children and herself have been watching “a merciless attack on social media with the spread of fake news, defamatory comments, allegations of wrongdoing from personal accounts, both well known and anonymous”.
Her announcement comes after a video surfaced last week with allegations for illegal financing of the President’s presidential campaign in 2023 and for controversial investments on the island.
The First Lady notes that the Management Committee of the Independent Social Support Agency will convene in an extraordinary session, on Monday, during which she will inform them about her decision to step down.
‘Not because I do not want to continue helping children- that was my only motivation from the outset- but because I will not allow anyone to continue to defame my ethics and integrity, my husband’s and my family’s, using as a pretext the operation of the Independent Social Support Agency from which no member of the Management Committee has the slightest personal gain,’ she writes.
She explains that the Independent Social Support Agency is a special state fund with an account at the Central Bank, and has been operating since 2015 by law. The grants are made by deposit through a bank, there is no cash, there is no way to access the account, or abuse it, she notes.
“There is absolute transparency and accountability. In no audit by the Auditor General of the Republic or private auditors appointed on his behalf, was the slightest irregularity or illegality detected. There is no way for money to leak, there are no financial transactions, all the money that is in the special account is used as scholarships for children who are studying,” she stresses.