Minister of Justice and Public Order, Marios Hartsiotis, made some astonishing statements about organised crime on Wednesday.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting at the legislature, Hartsiotis said that “organised crime existed, exists and will continue to exist” and that it “evolves in terms of the methods from time to time.” He did not stop there. “Organised crime will never be eradicated,” he said. “The state’s obligation, however, is to take all measures at its disposal to limit to the greatest possible degree the spread of organised crime in our country.”

Has he not surrendered a bit too soon? If he is not reshuffled, he would still have another 30 months as the minister in charge of law enforcement and crime-fighting. Yet he is certain he will not be able to deal any major blows to organised crime in the next two years, limiting his ambitions to the containment of its spread across the country, while it evolves in terms of methods in this period.

What makes Hartsiotis so certain that organised crime is invincible, that the authorities would be unable to eradicate it and that it will stay with us, like corruption, forever? Is this because the police force is incompetent and/or corrupt and therefore incapable of fighting organised crime? Is it because organised crime has such close ties with the authorities that it will not be touched? Is it because the criminals employ the best professionals to protect and hide their illegal dealings?

Perhaps it is because organised crime, according to the justice minister, is now imported from abroad. There was now “groups of foreign individuals operating in Cyprus,” he said, and that “they must be mapped so that they can be monitored to the greatest extent possible.” But if the police are aware of the existence of foreign criminals calling the shots, why do they not focus their efforts on crushing them? Why are the police only capable of containing them?

The question nobody asked Hartsiotis when he was making his admission of defeat by organised crime, was why has he not resigned. If he cannot eradicate organised crime, why is he still the minister running the state’s crime-fighting services? Why has he not stepped down to make way for someone who would be better able to do so? Hartsiotis was given plenty of time and, by his own admission, failed to have any impact and does not envisage having any in the future – “organised crime will continue to exist.”

It is extremely rare for a politician to be so candid about their failure in a ministerial post. But this is no justification for the president keeping Hartsiotis in his post. Surely, the president’s responsibility it to appoint someone with the confidence to take on organised crime.