GOVERNMENT baritone Vassilis Palmas is a nice, mild-mannered chap who belongs to the new breed of personality-free Cypriot politicians. Poker-faced, intensely serious, totally lacking a sense of humour and incapable of saying anything remotely interesting no matter how long he speaks for, he is another distinguished member of the super-bores club, alongside Omirou, Karoyian and Kyprianou.
Apart from not being burdened with a personality, these nice but boring chaps have the metaphysical power of putting their audience in a trance when they speak. If you do not believe me, listen to Karoyian or Omirou when they speak and then try to recall what they said. You will not remember a thing, apart from a few words, but a coherent idea, forget it.
Why, do I mention all this? It seemed like a brilliantly clever way to introduce a monumentally idiotic statement made by Palmas last Thursday (given in writing so there was no danger of forgetting what he had said) in response to a question about the involvement of the Tassos Papadopoulos and Co law office with a firm that is set to be given the government contract to set up an offshore terminal for liquid natural gas (LNG).
The offshore terminal is strongly opposed by the Electricity Authority (EAC) board and by the EAC staff unions, which held a 24-hour warning strike last week in protest against the Council of Ministers’ decision to set up one temporarily until a LNG terminal is built on land in seven years time. The offshore unit could be operational in two years, the government has claimed.
The company most likely to land the contract to set up the offshore terminal is Vassilikos LNG (original address TP&Co Law Office) in which the Switzerland-based company SBM Holdings has a 51 per cent stake. The remaining 49 per cent is held by Apollo NG Trading (original address TP&Co Law Office), which is wholly owned by Iver Management-Cyprus. The director of Iver Mannagement and its two nominee shareholders (50 per cent stake each) are all lawyers of the TP&Co Law Office.
According to the website that broke the story, SBM, during two presentations to its shareholders, had referred to the construction of the offshore terminal in Cyprus as a done deal. And 14 months ago, before the Council of Ministers had even taken a decision, SBM reps presented their Cyprus project to an international conference. Phil reported that the offshore terminal contract would be worth £1.5 billion over five years.
THIS brings us back to Palmas’ statement which said the following:
“We have seen this type of report and similar ones in the past and I am sure we will see more in the future, in view of the campaign for the presidential elections. But I wonder, what is the reprehensible point that is identified and I have to ask whether these reports do not aim to hurt the President of the Republic?”
First, how is he so sure we will see more during the election campaign bearing in mind that his boss has not yet decided whether he would be standing? Is he a clairvoyant?
Second, assuming his boss is standing for re-election, on what does he base his certainty that we will see more such reports? Has the TP&Co Law Office registered other front companies in which its lawyers are nominee shareholders and which are vying for multi-million pound, government contracts?
AS PALMAS cannot identify what is reprehensible about this story our establishment would like to help him understand what it is all about.
The government has for some time been insisting on establishing an offshore LNG terminal despite very strong opposition from the EAC board, which has given a host of arguments against it – nothing reprehensible about that.
Two companies are trying to land the contract and one of these, Vassilikos LNG is so certain it has already secured it that SBM, which owns 51 per cent of its equity, has been advertising the fact to its shareholders. The remaining 49 per cent in Vassilikos is held by Apollo NG Trading, which is wholly owned by a front company Iver Management, shareholders of which are lawyers of the TP&Co Law Office.
Now to the reprehensible bit that Palmas is too blind to see. When the government is determined to give a contract worth £1.5 billion to a firm, in which a front company with nominee shareholders from the president’s law office has a 49 per cent stake there is something very reprehensible.
Why is the real shareholder, who is Cypriot according to Palmas, hiding behind nominee shareholders? Why does he need to hide his identity? Most Cypriot businessmen would have advertised the fact that they were in partnership with a big international firm vying for a £1.5bn government contract, unless the businessman was a member of the government or a close relative of a member of the government.
Perhaps he has nothing to do with the government. But is it not reprehensible when a client of the president’s law office is set to land a huge government contract? Can Palmas categorically deny there was preferential treatment? Perhaps the businessman has invested undeclared funds in the venture and is using a front company of the president’s law office to hide from the income tax department? Is that not reprehensible?
And will the government give a contract worth £1.5bn to a company whose shareholders’ identity is a secret? Palmas could say that the identity is known to the Ethnarch – his employees will have told him – and that’s enough.
And as long as the founder of TP&Co says everything is above board, no reprehensible point can be identified.
HAD THE government baritone thought up these things or was he repeating what his boss had told him to say to hacks? The lie he uttered could not have come from his boss, as his boss never lies.
“The only involvement of the TP&Co Law Office was the registration of the two companies on the instruction of the Cypriot shareholder in July 2005,” said Palmas and added: “From then on, there was no other involvement.”
The fact that the director and nominee shareholders of the company controlling Apollo NG Trading are, to this day, lawyers of the above-mentioned office, does not constitute an involvement of the office.
THE SCOOP, from what I hear, was the result of an investigation by Phil hack Petros Theocharides but even though all his information was accurate his bosses did not want to run the story because it would incur the wrath of the Ethnarch. It is, after all, the standard policy of Phil to arse-lick the presidente of the Republic, irrespective of who he is, what he says, what he does and what he believes.
Theocharides, unwilling to see his hard work go to waste, set up a website by the name of gnews and posted his story on it on Wednesday. He tipped off another newspaper, Alithia, about the website knowing that it would use the story. This way, Theocharides could go back to his bosses and tell them that Phil could run his story – as it was already in the public domain and Alithia would run it as well – without the risk of losing the Ethnarch’s favour. This is the kind of scheming hacks need to engage in to sneak a scoop into our largest circulation daily.
But the head honchos at the presidential cheerleading organ were not willing to take any big risks and run the scoop of the month in a prominent position. It was buried on page 29 with a brief, well-hidden reference on the front page. I hope the Ethnarch hears about Phil’s betrayal and cancels the paper’s appointment as official brownnoser to the President of Republic.
As for Theocharides, I think he may have blown next year’s pay-rise.
WHAT is it about the members of our elite all wanting to go to the Vatican and meet the Pope? Have they decided that they want a Catholic solution to the Cyprus problem now that they have realised that the European solution involves the upgrading of the pseudo-state in the north?
First we had
the Etharch, his wife and daughter in tow, visiting the late Pope John Paul. Then we had the Ethnarch visiting Pope Benedict XVI, accompanied by foreign minister Lillikas. Then, the atheist Commissar Christofias arrived at the Vatican to pay his respects to the new Pope and now Archbishop Chrys II has gone with a posse of bishops.
The Greek Orthodox faithful need not fear that our elite is about to denounce Orthodoxy and embrace Catholicism; they were in the Vatican to meet Benedict, patch up the East-West schism of 1054, discuss the controversial filioque clause and do some shopping.
OUR ESTABLISHMENT was last week contacted by one of the hacks who had received the Theophanis Constantinides Journalism Award from the Intercollege Institute of Mass Media Communcations against his will.
I refer to Alecos Costantinides, who felt it was a grave injustice that Anthos Lickavgis had not been honoured despite his unrivalled contribution to Cypriot journalism and his indefatigable effort to raise the profession’s standard with his literary prose for more than four decades.
Constantinides has kindly offered to donate his award, which he received in the post, despite telling the Institute he did not want it to Lickavgis who deserved it more than hack on the island. He has forwarded the award to our establishment from where Anthos can pick it up next time he is in Cyprus. But he should give us a day’s warning so we could arrange a brief and modest ceremony for him.
CONSPIRACY fatigue mast have afflicted our media because not a single one made anything out of the front-page ‘Conspiracy against Cyprus’ story published in the Athens rag To Paron, which is regularly fed stories by our Athens Embassy communications advisor about our Ethnarch’s brave acts to foil the Anglo-American plots.
In its latest issue To Paron claimed there was a conspiracy in which the Brits, the Yanks, Christofias and Kassoulides were involved. The aim was to get rid of Tassos and bring back the Annan plan. If not even our gullible hacks could take this seriously, Anthos must be losing his touch as communication advisor, but his award is still waiting for him.
TWO MORE products have been found to be smuggled into the free areas from Turkey – cherries and hospital surgery masks. According to press reports, state hospitals have been supplied with surgery masks made in Turkey. These are apparently brought in via a European country.
DIKO deputy Athina Kyriakidou got hold of the masks and said that “they are not of a high standard, are of inferior quality and do not seem to cover the needs of Cyprus.” The good news, according to Phil, was that “in some cases doctors refused to wear them.” Presumably operations were postponed and patients had to wait until a new batch of high quality surgery masks were imported from another country.
THE FOLLOWIING is an excerpt from a piece titled The Devil Wears Flip-Flops which appeared in the excellent http://stravara.blogspot.com. It was posted by the legendary Noullis, who I am assured does not work for Phil.
“I don’t know if it was Mary or not, but somebody had a little lamb which appeared on CyBC on Thursday night to give Ioannis Kasoulides the third degree.
Yiannakis Kareklas went all coy and started nervously doing that hand-wringing thing that he does so well while meekly asking for Kasoulides’ indulgence: “Yes… you see… I may well be playing the role of the Devil’s Advocate tonight…,” he blurbed, while still managing to cut a dashing figure before embarking on a stellar journalistic performance that made Ed Murrow look like a smurf.
His statement, however, does beg the question whether Kareklas was implying that Papadopoulos is, in fact, the devil? Just curious.”
NO LAWN is small enough for a lawnmower as these Nicosia workmen proved. The Cypriot resourcefulness and inventiveness in finding ways to minimise hard work is unrivalled – just think of the kebab guys using hair-dryers to get the charcoal burning. The question is, were two workmen, equipped with a lawn-mower and a pair of sheers, really needed to mow a few square feet of grass. The workman with a water sprinkler must be hiding somewhere.
WE HAVE nothing to report about the presidential election horse-trading this week. Instead we have asked for permission to reproduce the fantastic cartoon that appeared in Yiangos Mikellides’ column in Politis last week. It says everything you need to know about the elections.
WE HAVE no room for the second and third part of our series about the positive aspects of our Ethnarch’s presidency. So we will run parts 2, 3 and 4 next week.
