By George Psyllides
The public sector should focus on increasing productivity, President Nicos Anastasiades said on Friday, as the most powerful government workers union, PASYDY, expressed readiness to work on reforming the sector.
The island was going through difficult times, the president said, and it was imperative that the public sector concentrated on increasing productivity and drastically cutting its operating expenses.
“I will not mention what has been done,” he said, speaking at PASYDY’s annual conference. “I am noting all the things that have not been done and they are still a lot.”
Anastasiades said they could be achieved if everyone worked together in unity.
“The public service must contribute to the restructuring of state services and meet the increasing public demands for good administration, meritocracy, transparency … accountability, and, mainly, upgrading the quality of service,” the president said.
PASYDY chief Glafkos Hadjipetrou said there was no question of not co-operating with the new civil service reform commissioner Irena Georgiades.
He expressed the union’s readiness “to discuss all pending issues through the established procedures with the aim of achieving rational solutions.”
PASYDY had refused to accept the previous commissioner’s — Emanouella Lambrianides — authority, urging its members not to take orders from her.
The union – which over the last couple of years argued against almost all austerity measures as the island continued edging closer to financial ruin – had avoided discussing the essence of the public sector reforms.
Instead, the union focused on the appointment of Lambrianides as public sector reform commissioner, arguing that it was political and therefore at odds with her position as a civil servant.
This invalidated her authority, PASYDY had said.
The new commissioner emphasized the need for reform, highlighting that primarily, demand for change is coming from public servants themselves, who could see the system’s dysfunctions up close.
But everyone’s contribution was necessary to make change happen, Georgiades told the Cyprus News Agency, adding that she had no doubt the two sides could co-operate to achieve a common objective.
“Reform can be planned and pretty and well written studies can be carried out, but its success depends on implementation on the ground,” Georgiades said. “And it is the public servants who will implement it and not somebody else.”
