By Loucas G. Charalambous
OUR POLITICAL parties in the Past few weeks have all focused their attention on the distribution of seat on the boards of semi-governmental organisations. President Tassos Papadopoulos has asked the parties to prepare lists with names of people they want appointed. There is intense competition among the government alliance parties as they all try to push ‘their’ people, while opposition party DISY is also demanding a share of the seats for its own supporters.
It is obvious that on this issue, Papadopoulos — who promised to bring “major and substantive change” when elected — will make no changes at all to the harmful practices that all of his predecessors followed with regard to semi-governmental organisations. He will also distribute the board seats among clueless party lackeys with the aim of servicing the vote-seeking objectives of the parties that put him in power.
The use of the boards of public organisations for the satisfaction of the political party clientele is one of the most calamitous practices of in Greek political life, and we have copied it religiously. First, it harms the organisations because they are run by an assortment of clueless mediocrities who are appointed solely on the strength of their devotion to a specific party, and not any administrative or managerial abilities; it is only natural that these organisations are then badly run. The subsequent hiring of incompetent and useless staff because of their own party links also contributes to the malaise.
Second, it harms society in general, as it makes a complete mockery of any notion of meritocracy, penalising people who are independent of the parties while promoting professional hangers-on who suck up to all those in authority for personal gain at a cost to the economy, not to mention any notion of social justice. We have heard of countless scandals in which members of semi-governmental boards were involved. It is almost commonplace for them to use their positions in order to secure contracts from such organisations for their own products and services. And if they cannot provide these products themselves, they help specific tenderers for a cut of the profit.
The main question raised is this: on what grounds does the president of the Republic request names from the political parties? Do political parties have the authority to choose the board members of public corporations? And what criteria do they use? How, for instance, do Demetris Christofias and Andreas Cleanthous know which individuals are suitable to sit on the board of CyTA or the oil refinery? What knowledge do they have in order to be able to make such choices? And with what right can they exclude the thousands of qualified and capable individuals who do not belong to their respective parties, or any other party for that matter?
If I were the president I would adopt a radical approach. First, I would appoint a small advisory committee made up of experts, and would then publicly invite anyone interested to apply for a specific board seat. The application would have to be accompanied by a CV as well as a two-page summary of what the applicant planned to do — for the smoother operation of the organisation — if appointed.
Some might say that this is not a practical solution, because thousands of applications would be submitted. I do not think there is such a danger for two reasons. First, this method would exclude all the clueless individuals as well as those without the necessary qualifications. Second, only very few Cypriots would be interested in studying the affairs of a semi-governmental organisation and write a two-page summary of serious views and suggestions. Needless to say that in such a case the party leaders and officials would automatically be excluded from the procedure. Certainly this would be to the benefit of the organisations as their respective boards would consist of people with superior qualifications than the current procedures allow. At present the only qualification required is membership of a political party.
During his election campaign, Papadopoulos sermonised a great deal about meritocracy, equal opportunities and the eradication of favouritism in the state sector. This was a wonderful opportunity for him to prove that when he promised to bring about “major change” he actually meant it. And he could have started by appointing capable public-spirited individuals to the boards of semi-governmental organisations. But he chose instead to comply with the directives of his government’s godfather, Demetris Christofias, who has already drawn up his own lists.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
