Tales from the coffeeshop: Big day looms: Odysseas faces martyrdom

THE BIG DAY is nigh. On Wednesday the supreme constitutional court will announce its decision about the Odysseas-general. His future depends on the half a dozen judges who have probably already drafted the decision, which remains a carefully guarded secret – it has not even been leaked to Phil at the time of writing this.

Whatever it is, a hysterical reaction is guaranteed from the hundreds of Odysseas zealots, who will either be dancing in the streets, celebrating the vindication of Kyproulla’s saviour or dousing themselves in petrol and setting themselves alight outside the supreme court in protest at the injustice.

There will be much more fun and excitement if the court terminates Odysseas for inappropriate conduct because I cannot see anyone publicly expressing their rage and engaging in over-the-top acts of civil unrest if it rules that his actions were a bit inappropriate, but not enough to justify his sacking. 

If the unthinkable does happen, Odysseas will attain martyrdom, a tragic hero who was crushed by a corrupt establishment because he refused to bow to it.

MY LEGAL expertise does not go beyond libel law but a lawyer, who drinks his metrios with thick kaimaki, informs me that the AG has a strong case based on the Rikkos Erotokritou judgment. Rikkos was the deputy AG who was sacked for publicly accusing the AG at the time, Costas Clerides, of corruption.

Rikkos had done this only once. In the Odysseas case, AG Giorgos Savvides gave about 10 instances of Odysseas publicly accusing the deputy AG and himself of corruption. When this was put to Odysseas during the hearing he said he had “never” made any such an accusation against either.

Anyway, whatever the decision is, Odysseas will accept it, because he has great faith in our justice system. When the AG submitted the application for termination, Odysseas issued an announcement in which he said “thankfully, the constitution, justice and the truth are very powerful allies, which is why I am neither afraid nor worried.”

He also said, “it is my sincere conviction that the evidence is overwhelmingly in my favour.” In three days, we will know if he was right.

EXTREMELY surprised that we did not read a single negative or critical comment about the signing of the Roadmap of Bilateral Defence Cooperation with the United States, which for the last 50 years our politicians and journalists have been mercilessly attacking and presenting as the evil enemy of Kyproulla which always sided with the Turks.

I was particularly disappointed with the silence of our leading US-bashers at Akel and Phil who are pretending that nothing happened. Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas said, after signing the agreement, that “our strategic partnership is at the highest level it has ever been” and there was not a single sarcastic or critical comment.

What is happening to us? We have written off 50 years of heroic resistance to US scheming against our national interests, of conspiracies to impose pro-Turkish plans on Kyproulla, of vile attacks on our money-laundering enterprises to become American-obedient servants overnight?

Thankfully there are still the duplicitous, Turk-loving Brits for the defenders of the centre of the universe to attack and abuse now they have lost the Yanks who have been transformed from a force of evil to a strategic partner.

THE GREAT Sea Interconnector saga appears to be reaching its conclusion, according to a report in Saturday’s Phil, which claimed the council of ministers will approve the deal on Tuesday, although the government has only had one of its demands satisfied – if the project falls through the cost incurred would be shared 50-50 with Greece instead of entire by Kyproulla.

But there are no guarantees about the cost, which is estimated to be €1.94 billion. Our side demanded a ceiling was set for the cost, but in the end had to be satisfied with assurances from the cable manufacturer Nexans and the project promoter Admie that it would not deviate significantly from the original estimate.

In the event it does, we will pick up the bill, which is incredibly unfair, because neither Admie nor Nexans will have any incentive to control costs. I may have missed something, but on the surface it seems rather naïve to agree to a two billion euro project that could end up costing 2.5 or 3 billion on completion and if it is not completed you would still end up paying half the cost of the uncompleted work done.

AS IF the pressure he was under to make a decision about the interconnector was not bad enough, Prezniktwo also had to suffer negative write-ups about the state pension he was receiving in addition to his state salary.

The matter was raised again last Monday at the House finance committee at which 11 bills were tabled aimed at addressing the issue of state officials collecting a state pension in addition to their salary – there are 30 including the prez and three of his ministers.

A law that tried to put an end to this practice was ruled unconstitutional, but deputies have not given up the effort. Meanwhile the government, introducing a little childishness to the matter, undertook to tackle the issue by preparing its own bill by which a state official would be able to voluntarily waive the right to a state pension.    

Does it require a law for an official to volunteer not to take his pension? Officials had waived the right to the pension in the past without a law so why do the prez and his ministers want a law to allow a voluntary act?

PERHAPS they are expecting this law not to be passed, in which case they would argue that in the absence of a law saying they can voluntarily waive the right to the pension, voluntarily waiving this right would be illegal.

Even if the law, which was to have received its approval by the cabinet last Friday, was passed by the legislature, it would not apply to serving state officials, a representative of the finance ministry told the House on Monday. So, the prez would still not be able to voluntarily waive his right to the pension regardless of how much he wants to do this.

The next day, in an attempt to stop the media mockery, Mini Me said the government’s joke law would apply to serving officials. The government rottweiler Victoras added his authoritative voice to the proceedings, in case Mini Me was not taken seriously. The prez would waive the right to the €1,000 pension as soon as the law was passed, said Victoras.

And if it was not passed, he would carry on reluctantly pocketing it because a voluntary donation of money cannot be made if law does not oblige you to do so.

KYPROULLA may have entered the post-truth era of politics before the term had been invented so we should not be surprised that our prez seems so comfortable operating in it. When he was asked about party criticism of the Great Sea Interconnector deal he came up with the sound-bite of the month.

“Some are thinking about the next elections, we are thinking about the next generations,” he quipped. And because he is thinking about the next generations, he invited the hacks to cover his sermon to ministers before Friday’s cabinet meeting about the code of ethics they had to follow.

During his spiel, which could have been given privately, the showman said, “faithful observance and safeguarding of the principles of the code must be the primary concern and personal obligation of each one of us towards the citizens who elected us, so we can establish, in practice and not in words, a strong rule of law that constitutes a priority of our administration.”

Which code of ethics was his minister of finance following in issuing phoney certificates to football clubs claiming that they had no tax debts so they could play in European competitions?

THE STRONG rule of law that is a priority of the administration does not apply to football clubs which have been breaking the law for years, by refusing to pay their dues to inland revenue and the social insurance fund, building up debts of €38 million.

In fact, the government will reward the law breaking by using the taxpayer’s money to pay off the debts of the football clubs as a way of establishing in practice the rule of law. Conclusive proof that our prez, in stark contrast with his prospective rivals, is not thinking about the next elections.