THE CAMPAIGN for the parliamentary elections has unofficially started, we are happy to report. The demagogues have already begun work – not that they ever stopped, but competition to come up with crazy vote-buying schemes has intensified.
It began a few weeks ago, when several Famagusta deputies renewed efforts to turn bird-trapping into a minor offence that could be punished with an on-the-spot fine like illegal parking. Taking offenders to court, making them sit through a trial and pay big fines was impractical and an inconvenience they argued.
It would be much easier for the trappers to be issued a ticket by the police or game wardens and then be left to get on with their business. It made sense. Authorities would not have to confiscate mist nets and lime-sticks as evidence, while trappers would pay much smaller fines.
This would significantly reduce the cost of bird-trapping and bring down the extortionate prices charged for a dozen ambelopoulia in restaurants. Not only is this an imperative in time of recession, but it would make the little birds affordable to low income groups and thus contribute to the goal of creating a fairer society.
THE SURREALISTIC law which makes refugee status a hereditary right for kids of male refugees will be amended to cover the offspring of female refugees as well. Many deputies who know that failing to support this insane bill would cost votes have said they would support it because the existing law discriminates against women, which it does.
It also discriminates against the offspring of poor parents, who were not refugees but have less money than a refugee family; they could also do with €40,000 help from the government to buy a house, but they get nothing.
There are other provisions that the amendment of the law should explore. For instance, why should childless or unmarried refugees not be allowed to pass on their refugee status to the children of relatives who are not refugees, like they would do with a plot of land? As it stands the law discriminates not only against women but also against unmarried, childless and gay refugees. These people must be allowed to pass on the right to claim 40 grand from the state to other members of the family and keep the refugee industry alive.
I WILL SAY no more in case the Mother Teresas of the legislature get any more funny ideas and cause our good friend Charilaos a heart attack. Charilaos sent the House a memo, a day before the amendment to the law was due to be approved, telling deputies that the immediate cost to the state would be €671 million.
I am certain his figures were grossly inflated if not fictitious, but can anyone blame him for resorting to such a cheap ploy, which secured the two-week postponement of the approval of the amendment? Charilaos’ weakness is that he views everything like a penny-pinching accountant and lacks vision.
If he had vision he would recognise the political benefits of the amendment. It would give us twice as many refugees as we had in 1974, thus winning us more sympathy from the international community and give a boost to refugee manufacturing at a time when all our other traditional industries are in steep decline.
CONFIRMATION that the parliamentary election campaign had started came on Thursday when deputies from four parties submitted a bill that would force banks and other credit institutions to suspend all actions to recover loans they had given customers for investments on the Cyprus Bubble Exchange.
The whole share-buying craze of 10 years ago was a scam, argued four deputies and therefore banks, co-ops etc should not try to recover the money they loaned to investors who suffered big losses gambling on the stock market. But why stop there? What about the morons who invested in the holiday homes market and now can only sell their properties at a fraction of the cost?
Surely the banks should not demand repayment of their loans from them either, because they acted as stupidly as the share buyers, 10 years earlier. And what about other idiot investors? If the law does not cover them it would be discriminatory, as it would not offer the same protection from banks to all morons.
ONE OMISSION from the law, relates to the idiots who repaid the investment loans they took from banks in 1999 and 2000, despite losing big amounts of lolly. I did not see a provision ordering the banks to give the loans back to these people – a blatant case of discrimination against people who honour their signature and take responsibility for their stupidity.
The law also provides for a fine and/or imprisonment for any institution which tries to recover the money it loaned for investment in shares. Although it sounds a great idea, it might be a bit difficult to put a bank in prison as there would be no cell big enough for it.
This campaign bill was prepared by deputies from DISY, EDEK, EVROKO and DIKO, which means it does not have the support of AKEL. How cute that the communists are the only party protecting the interests of greedy capitalist bankers.
FOREIGN workers being paid five euro a day for 11 hours work, trumpeted Antenna TV disapprovingly on its news headlines of Monday night. This aroused my curiosity and I stayed tuned to find out where these hapless foreign workers were employed.
I also had an ulterior motive – if I learnt where they were employed I could offer them work at the Coffeeshop, which has a couple of vacancies, for 10 euro per day. I would thus feel virtuous for having doubled the pay of two exploited foreign workers and they would be eternally indebted to our establishment.
The report was from a building site, with one of the Eastern European workers being interviewed on a bulldozer. ‘And they are paying you five euro a day,’ asked the incredulous reporter, who must have felt he had uncovered a big exploitation ring. The worker was taken a bit aback by what the reporter was saying.
‘Five euro per ora’ he stammered rather confusedly, even though it was clear to everyone apart from Antenna’s reporter that he meant ‘five euro per hour’. The reporter repeated ‘pente evro tin imera?’ and the worker just nodded. The exploited workers were being paid five euro an hour, which is the minimum wage.
The real news story here was how well TV rewards low intelligence, because I bet the newshound who uncovered this non-story earns a lot more than five euro per ora.
FORMER Antenna news boss Giorgos Tsalakos has come out of retirement to take over as super-boss of the news group that publishes Alithia newspaper and owns Super Sport FM radio station. The group, under DISY deputy Socratis Hasikos also owns subscriber channel, Alpha TV, which is currently being run by LTV.
The Alpha-LTV contract ends next year when digital broadcasting arrives and Hasikos will take control of the channel again. Tsalakos will probably run Alpha TV, but until then he has been instructed to overhaul Alithia. Hacks at the paper have not been impressed by the arrival of a TV man to lord it over them and are still puzzled about the appointment.
There are rumours that Hasikos wants to make the paper more nationalistic than it is at present, but it is still unclear how the paper would position itself in the saturated bash-patriotic section of the market.
WE WERE pleased to note that foreign minister Marcos Kyprianou, despite the taxing demands of his position, still finds time to combine business with pleasure. Eight days ago he was in Venice to attend a twinning ceremony between Venice and Larnaca. We could not begrudge him a short break in Venice.
The foreign minister had no business attending a twinning ceremony, a municipal affair, but everyone in government deserves a short break, in a luxury hotel of a beautiful city at the taxpayer’s expense. I hope our good friend Charilaos does not use this as an excuse to cut Marcos travel budget.
‘BIG WORRIES about the capabilities of the National Guard,’ read Simerini’s banner headline a fortnight ago. The paper reported that members of the General Staff as well as deputies on the House Defence Committee were concerned that the army had fallen victim of the cutbacks.
Military exercises had been reduced while arms spending had been cut. Reservists were not being called in for exercises, because the Guard wanted to economise on consumables such as food and ammunition, the report said, while the Rambo of the House Defence Committee, Yiannakis Omirou had asked the defence minister for explanations about the situation.
We had every intention of congratulating the government for not wasting as much money on the National Guard as its predecessors, apart from the idiotic purchase of 41Russian tanks for a cool 100 million euro, but this week everything changed.
Defence minister Costas Papacostas, held a news conference on Tuesday to re-assure us that the Tof government was doing its best to waste as much of the taxpayer’s money on defence as its predecessors. Apart from the 41 tanks, it had also ordered a total of 400 army vehicles and three helicopters.
Simerini and Omirou need not worry – the National Guard’s capability to waste our money has not been diminished by the recession.
DESPITE all the myth-making about our mean military machine by the politicians, the National Guard has never been anything more than an alternative civil service. It is manned (and womanned nowadays) by civil servants in army fatigues who apart from filling forms and talking on their mobiles might also know how to use a gun.
I speak from experience here. A few weeks ago I went to collect some army papers from the Guard offices located on the land where the Qatari complex will be built. The conscript on guard duty at the entrance was talking on his mobile phone, but interrupted his conversation to direct me to a small office, a few yards behind the guard-post, at which I had to register.
While the female soldier was taking my details, her phone rang and she answered. It was someone wanting to speak to conscript at the guard-post, so she shouted at him to take the call before she directed me to the office I had to go to.
As I entered the office, there was female soldier sitting at her desk whispering into her mobile phone. On the left was a fake blonde in army fatigues, sitting back in her comfy chair, holding the office phone in one hand and a juice in the other, showing off her manicured nails. She was speaking quite loudly, as if she were in her own living room. As the ladies were too busy to serve me I went to their superior – a major. Unlike his female subordinates, he was polite, very helpful and was not speaking on the phone.
I TOLD the major what I had come for and while he was looking for my papers in his files, his office phone rang so he picked it up. It was someone calling for the blonde and the major informed her. ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone,’ she snapped. ‘Just ask who it is and I will call back,’ she ordered her superior. ‘I am not taking anyone’s name for you,’ he replied.
‘What’s wrong with you? You take messages for me other times,’ she said. ‘Well I am not this time,’ the annoyed major said. ‘Oh, just ask them to call back in 10 minutes,’ the blonde told the uncooperative major, who having completed his secretarial duties, found my papers and sent me on my way.
Both army chicks were still on the phone. The phone has obviously replaced the rifle as the main assault weapon of the National Guard, which is no bad thing – it is a weapon our female soldiers know very well and are very comfortable with.
WE HOPE Cyprob junkies will forgive us for not featuring any Cyprob item today, even though there was an abundance of critical developments over the last few days to write about. But we are all suffering Cyprob fatigue. We will however express our joy for the fact that comrade Tof accepted Big Al’s invitation to a dinner that will also be attended by Dervis Eroglu. The comrade had declined an earlier invitation to dinner from Eroglu, saying he would like Al to be present at any dinner. Apart from special envoy, Big Al has also assumed the role of the comrade’s chaperone.
