THE SANCTIONS, imposed by the Yanks and Brits during Holy Week on 23 Cypriots and 20 Cyprus-based companies, may have brought the honeymoon period of the new presidency to a premature end as it has been pooping bricks, to put it politely, ever since they were announced.
We have lost count of the meetings Prez Nik II has had at the presidential palace to deal with the matter, each one followed by statements by the government spokesman expressing the government’s eagerness to cooperate with the US and show “that it does not conceal anything.”
At Wednesday’s palace meeting, the government decided another ‘after the event’ policy, which has always been the style of the executive. Nik the First, set up an anti-corruption authority, only after several thousand golden passports were issued and countless corrupt dealings had taken place.
Now we will have a National Unit for the Implementation of Sanctions, after the violations.
UNCLEAR, however, whether this will be a new unit, completely separate from the Unit for the Implementation of Sanctions set up by the council of ministers and placed under the authority of the finance ministry last June.
It may be the same unit, but upgraded to ‘National,’ will make it much more effective and infinitely more important sounding. Perhaps the ‘national’ tag is necessary for the Brits to run it. The UK, according to our government will offer the Unit “technocratic support,” probably because we could not be trusted to run it ourselves.
I suspect this was the idea of the Yanks, as we have proved we could not operate such a unit with any competence. It might be an idea for the Brits to undertake its creation as well, because if it is left to us the war in Ukraine might be over before we set it up.
IN A WAY, the sanctions may have proved a blessing for Nik II, as they deflected attention from his self-inflicted trials and tribulations during Holy Week, caused by his decision to appoint his Paphos buddy, Michalakis Michael, as a member of the public service commission.
About 24 hours after the announcement of the appointment, the hapless Michael was forced to submit his resignation, because social media had been flooded with stories about his qualifications, which were received from a US university that gave degrees for a few hundred bucks; it had even given a degree to a cat.
This episode made a complete mockery of his election pledge to set up special criteria for the appointment of public officials and have a council evaluating them and making recommendations to the government. None of this happened in the case of Michael or in the case of the re-appointment of the ombudswoman.
When this evaluation council is eventually set up, it might be a good idea for the government to seek the “technocratic support” of Britain.
THE BLAME for the appointment was placed on Dipa’s chief Marios Garoyian, a member of the government alliance and renowned rusfetologist (he learned the trade by the side of the father of rusfeti, Spy Kyp), also debited with the appointment of Makis Keravnos as finance minister.
This may have been palace misinformation, the prez not wanting people to know that the only appointment criterion Michael satisfied was that of being his buddy. That he was a failed, Dipa parliamentary candidate, did not mean he was chosen by Garoyian.
The public service commission is the main vehicle for rusfeti as it decides all appointments and promotions in the civil service so the prez would want a member of his trust. This is a post most Cypriots would become vegans for – it pays a net, monthly salary of €5,147, for minimal work – so you’d expect it go to a Nikos II loyalist.
Surprisingly, a Nikos the First protégé, was appointed after Michael’s resignation, illustrating the influence he wields over his successor.
THE BENEFICIARY of Nikos’ the First’s largesse with the taxpayer’s money was lawyer Loukia Christodoulou, who is said to be his koumera and has been on the public payroll for 23 years, occupying a variety of well-paid positions.
Christodoulou was appointed a member of the Tax Council in 2000, taking a net salary in the region of €3,000 per month until 2007. In 2008 she moved to the Commission for the Protection of Competition, at which she was a member for four years on a similar net salary. In 2012, she was made president of the Commission, a post that paid a net monthly salary of €6,000 and stayed there for 10 years.
From 2000 until 2022 she has had a total net income from the taxpayer of between €1.2 and €1.3 million. And now as a member of the public service commission she will receive a net salary, of about €5,147, which would total €334,555 in the five years she serves. This would take her net earnings to more the €1.5 million, even though the cost to the taxpayer is much higher because the amount is after income tax had been paid.
The lady should place a statue of her koumbaros in her front garden.
MEANWHILE Nik the First spent the Easter holidays in Athens. He was also there at Christmas, frequenting a café in fashionable Kolonaki. On Holy Thursday he had coffee with another benefactor of his rusfetological magnanimity – our ambassador to Greece, Kyriakos Kenevezos.
Kenevezos, a lawyer who served briefly as an education minister in the first Nik government, was appointed ambassador to Athens, without a diplomatic background, because the big salary would help him pay off his big debts. Although his contract was up in March, the successor, extended it for another six months, probably at the behest of his predecessor.
What I would like to know is who is paying for the Cypriot cops that accompany our Nik on his visits to Athens? They sit at the Kolonaki café watching him. Where do they stay in Athens and who pays for their air fares, lodgings and per diem? And if Nik moves to Athens is he entitled to take his 12-cop detail with him? Just asking.
SPEAKING of the waste of the taxpayer’s money, the government is planning on opening close to 2,000 public sector jobs for people seeking a parasitic career. The finance minister has a proposal for a total of 1,971 hirings for first appointment posts that were frozen for the last decade.
Of these 1,536 are in the public sector, 315 in the broader public sector and 120 in the army. Is there a need to add a couple of hundred million euro to the public payroll which is currently at €3 billion? Of course not. All services are being digitalised, according to the government, so the public sector should be freezing more jobs.
Only in Kyproulla, does the advance of digitalisation require a couple of thousand extra workers. Perhaps the new public parasites will guard the government’s servers and prevent any new cyber attacks.
AN EXTRAORDINARY meeting of academic staff of the University of Cyprus, called at the end of last month to discuss a €26 million deficit in university finances, turned into an orgy of whining and self-pity, a person that was present has reported.
After the internal auditor identified the deficit, the rector Tasos Christofides, called the meeting to tell staff that belts had to be tightened and that there would be no money to supplement research grants that had been secured. He also told them that they could not even use their reserves of research funds, because of the dire situation.
Academics took the floor to moan and cry about this freeze on spending, all melodramatically acting as victims. “You would have thought they were starving and had been denied the money to buy a piece of bread,” said our disgusted informer, noting that few people earn the salaries of the distraught academics.
The unfolding tragedy was averted, and the academics did not have to wear their victimhood for too long. The internal auditor eventually found he had been mistaken and the deficit was much smaller, at €5 million. The academics would not be starved of funds.
LOCAL Chelsea fans will have taken great pride to learn that their club’s greatest benefactor, Roman Abramovich, had a big connection with Kyproulla.
For years, there had been speculative reports about his links to the international business centre and rumours about his super-yacht docking in Limassol marina, but nothing concrete.
Now they have the proof that not only did Roman have a Limassol-based Cypriot fixer, but this fixer had been arranging the transfer of hundreds of millions of euro through a network of companies into Chelski’s banks accounts, so it could splash out on top players. Roman’s loan to Chelski eventually reached 1.4 billion pounds, but he has said he does not want the moolah back.
They should have the Cyprus flag permanently flying at Stamford Bridge, as a show of gratitude to Kyproulla for its very significant contribution to turning Chelski into a big club.
I WOULD like to humbly say that on Friday our disreputable establishment celebrated its 32nd birthday. It first opened its doors on April 21st, 1991 and has kept going since then. We did not celebrate our birthday with a conventional cake, but instead placed the 32 candles on a tashinopitta, specially made for the occasion.
We urge customers not to send any birthday presents this year. Instead make a donation to the state to help speed up the establishment of the National Unit for the Implementation of Sanctions.
