SINCE returning here after an absence of three months, I was struck by how little the local news scene seems to have changed in my absence. Cyprus remained a safe and prosperous place where one could spend long days in the sun, admire the magnificent ancient sites and walk in the pleasant cool of the Troodos mountains.
Three related news items which appeared in the subsequent week, however, seemed ominous to me. The first referred to a recent survey that had found that nearly nine out of 10 young Cypriots would readily immigrate if they had the chance. The second, and to me an even more disturbing finding, was that nearly eight in 10 young Cypriots expressed the desire to be employed in the public sector. Thirdly, the survey found that 58 per cent of young Cypriots surveyed felt that corruption in the public sector is costing their country dearly.
A visit to the weekend retreat of a Cypriot friend brought some perspective when, after a magnificent meal, he told me his family news, the most important of which was that his son had found a position in the public service. He explained to me why this was quite an achievement.
First of all, he the father had had to make a payment, a kind of deposit, of 10 000 Euro, before his son’s application could be considered. Then, after one or two other payments the nature of which I could not follow, his son was invited to the capital for a test and an interview. He told me that he had subsequently had a telephone call from a person known to him to warn him that although his son was the top scorer both in the exam and the interview, the next 20 or so applicants, whose results were poorer than his son’s, each had a ‘contact’ in the government. Effectively, his son had therefore moved down from first to 21st place for the vacant position. He was advised to produce a very senior supporter in the government for his son if he was to stand any chance of getting the job.
Fortunately, he told me, he knows a cabinet minister very well and immediately set off to see this powerful ally. Without an appointment, he managed to see this important man, who only had to pick up the phone and speak the word and ‘Eureka!’ his son had secured a position for life in one of the best paid public services in Europe. Its splendid conditions of service include a generous pension to which he need make no contribution in order to end his days carefree, after a leisurely public service career!
This story of corruption and nepotism was recounted with the appropriate pride of a parent who had done his duty and, thanks to one powerful contact, could secure his talented son the career he deserved. Perhaps this (true) story, even if dramatised somewhat by the narrator, sheds some light on the otherwise inexplicable (to an outsider) findings of the above-mentioned survey. Most young people are aware of the corruption and nepotism that exist in the public service (58 per cent). If I can benefit from this (the 80 per cent who expressed the desire to work in the public service), that is fine. And if I am not lucky enough to secure a job in the public service (90 per cent of those surveyed), I consider leaving the country. It seems that the option of entrepreneurship in the private sector is no longer an option.
These results must be particularly alarming to the Minister of Finance as he is struggling to make the national budget balance. Where are young people for the work market in the private sector going to come from if their highest ambition is a protected, leisurely, overpaid job in the public service? The engine that drives any modern economy is the entrepreneurship required to make a success in business. Even the former communist world came to this conclusion more than twenty years ago with the collapse of the former Soviet Empire while the blooming Chinese economy is based on the success of a myriad small private firms.
A young Greek friend who recently graduated from a Canadian university said, when asked whether she was returning to Greece to find work, that that had been her intention until she had a re-union with her Greek classmates in Athens, and almost every one told her that their greatest ambition was to enter the Greek public service – if only they could! This is borne out by the above survey finding that nearly 75 per cent of Greek youths have the same ambition of working in the public sector. For someone who had spent five years in a capitalist country, where the public service is often the last resort of the least talented, this was unacceptable. Our brilliant young friend decided to leave Greece again in search of a job in New York.
The Greek economy finally buckled under the unwieldy burden of this bloated, over-manned, greedy public service which it carries like an albatross around its neck. Will this scenario repeat itself in Cyprus? Or will the tragic fate of Greece, in so many ways the icon of Cypriot ambition, be a timely warning?
Johan Adler is a South African columnist, a former diplomat and businessman
