AFTER a year in office, Prezniktwo has successfully established the communications model of government, with a big emphasis on presentation, positive messaging and minimal action.

Even the police force is following this methodology, as dear old Phil revealed on Tuesday, having been given the 16-page memo sent by the police command to the heads of all departments and units. According to the memo, some 200 officers will be deployed for 60 days in car patrols from late at night until the early hours with the aim of “preventing and eliminating serious and organised crime”.

The desired result of this two-month mission was the enforcement of law and order through a heavy police presence, reported Phil and added: “It is explained that with the frequent staging of coordinated operations and systematic checks of cars of suspected individuals and premises the objective will be achieved.”

Now that the police’s top brass has discovered that all serious and organised crime takes place on the streets between 12 midnight and 5am, it should take less than 60 days to eliminate it, especially if patrol cars have their flashing blue lights switched on.

I WONDER whether now that it has been revealed that 188 police will be in 89 patrol cars (plus four motorbikes in Nicosia and Limassol), covering “36 geographical sectors all over Cyprus”, from midnight to dawn for 60 consecutive nights, crime bosses would change the working hours of their organisations.

They could introduce civil service hours and commit their crimes during daytime, despite not having the cover of darkness. During the day, however, there will be no police patrol cars on the roads, attempting to crack down on their illegal activities.

The action plan may have been wrecked, by alerting criminals – just four days after it was put in force – by the Phil report which revealed the ingenious strategy of the police masterminds. Then again, I suspect the details of the operation had to be revealed, because the cops had to communicate to the public that they were doing something about serious crime, even though it will not amount to much.

In fairness, the police carried out the communication aspect of the crime crackdown supremely well.

POOR OLD Makis, the finance minister, did not have an easy ride with the communication aspect of ending the tax reduction on fuel, despite help from the cabinet which held an extraordinary meeting on Thursday to decide ‘offsetting measures’.

The ‘offsetting measures’ were primarily aimed at offsetting the negative publicity the higher price of fuel was certain to cause. Apart from a few peanuts thrown at low-income pensioners, the rest of the offsetting measures were already in existence, but their duration was extended by a few months for communications purposes.

These were ‘targeted’ measures maintained Makis on the Trito show the next day, insisting that the IMF and the European Commission had warned against ‘horizontal’ (across-the-board) measures. Subsidy of electricity bills of 500,000 subscribers and zero VAT on essential products for another three months were totally untargeted.

Makis reminded that the government had spent €300 million on support measures in the last year, but that still failed to offset the vicious attacks by the opposition parties, both Disy and Akel, insisting that it should waste more of the taxpayer’s money on these communications measures.

THE JENNIFER left for Gaza on Saturday as calm seas had been forecasted, but our prez’s Amalthea initiative, which has received many plaudits from the EU and the US, is not looking a very effective way of getting food to starving Palestinians.

Sending food supplies once every two or three weeks is not going to stave off the famine conditions in Gaza, but as Prezniktwo told a group of visiting university students from Greece on Friday, the Amalthea initiative has helped our Kyproulla.

“This initiative proved that even small states, when they have clear (xekatharous) targets and clear (xekatharo) orientation, can offer solutions even to regional and international problems and, by extension they can utilise this international interest, or positive exposure, as a result of the initiative of the Cyprus Republic, so that we can also achieve our number one target which is the ending of the occupation and the reunification of our country.”

In short, Amalthea, apart from offering a solution to an international problem, could also offer a solution to the Cyprob through the positive publicity it has generated. Politics is all about communication, after all.

THE REPRESENTATIVE of a foreign state interested in participating in the Amalthea initiative by providing supplies asked the government for a ‘concept paper’, which explained how the process worked in terms of deliveries, supply checks, timeframes and other such specifics.

The government’s response was that that there was no such document, but the representative of the interested country could give a call to a person at the foreign ministry and she would explain the process over the phone. Do not know what the foreign ministry official said, but it could have been “just leave the supplies outside Larnaca port, with labels ‘For Gaza’, and we will take care of them.”

FORMER Cyprob negotiator, failed presidential candidate and Akel’s non-commie poster boy, Andreas Mavroyiannis was put in a bit of a tight spot last weekend when he participated in a discussion with Turkish Cypriot pseudo-MP Fikri Toros at CVAR in Nicosia.

Mavroyiannis was annoyed when a member of the audience asked him why the Greek Cypriot side walked out of the Crans-Montana talks if, as he claimed, it was committed to reaching a deal. He said, it was a myth that Preznikone had walked out, as he had done nothing of the sort. “It is your propaganda,” he said rather aggressively to the Turkish Cypriot, who asked the question.

A little before this exchange, he had been asked about the lack of transparency and why the leaders never informed civil society about what was being discussed in talks. He said that personally he was fully transparent and always answered questions. His commitment to transparency was not evident however when asked about the alleged walkout, preferring to dismiss it as a myth.

THE UNLIKEABLE governor of the central bank, Constantinos Herodotou, in the last few months has upped his communications game, not to mention his pandering to politicians, in the hope of being given a second term. His term expires in a few days and the prez who will make the decision has given nothing away yet.

Regardless, Herodotou has been busily promoting himself, his latest PR stunt being the promotion of digital financial literacy. The central bank announced that he had prepared training videos with the aim of making the public aware of digital financial literacy. These videos were made with the “valuable contribution of the President of Cyprus Republic”, said a central bank announcement.

The buttering up of the prez by Herodotou did not end there. He was also a guest speaker at the international conference for the promotion of financial literacy in Cyprus, organised by the central bank on Friday, as part of the governor’s campaign for the renewal of his term.

ASKED by hacks before entering the conference whether he had taken a decision about the governor, Prezniktwo said announcements would be made “when the current term is completed”. He gave a hint that Herodotou might get a second term, saying that “excellent work is being carried out at Central Bank.”

This would be bad news for former top executive at the B of C, Christakis Patsalides, who had been a close associate of the prez since the election campaign, advising him on economic issues. He was a certainty to become finance minister but was vetoed by one of the party leaders and was told by an apologetic prez he would be made central bank governor, a post Patsalides’ father also held.

Poor Patsalides looks set to be stood up at the altar for a second time. Ethnarch Junior has threatened to quit the government if the prez does not give Herodotou a second term as governor. Could there be more emphatic proof of Herodotou’s unsuitability for the job than Junior’s zealous backing?

PATHETIC is the most apt description of the CyBC workers moaning on air and for making the possibility that they would not be paid their March wages before the end of the month big news.

They devoted hours of airtime talking about this great injustice, bringing on union hacks to inform us that it was a crime for an employer not to pay a worker by the end of the month and other such nonsense. This tragedy was supposedly caused by the corporation not submitting its budget to the legislature for approval on time but could also have had something to do with the court order freezing its assets.

Whatever the reason, listening to this relentless orgy of self-pity, from some of the most pampered employees of Kyproulla, was very disturbing for us sensitive souls. If you happen to be passing the CyBC building and have some spare cash, it would be nice if you left it at the gate for the poor old workers, so they feed themselves until they get paid on Tuesday.