OUR ESTABLISHMENT would like to apologise to the PASYDY boss Glafkos Hadjimourmouris for consistently presenting him as Kyproulla’s most obnoxious union leader. In the last couple of weeks we have realised that we had been a little unfair to him as we were exposed to a much more obnoxious type of union boss than him.
The SGO union bosses turned out to be significantly worse than Hadjiklamouris. Andreas Panorkos, who heads an EAC union called something like Popeye and was a daily guest on TV and radio shows last week, makes his PASYDY colleague seem almost like a reasonable human being by comparison.
Apart from being thuggish and uncivilised, the self-regarding SGO unionists are not blessed with great intelligence. Early Tuesday morning, when the strike by the EAC began, Panorkos was on radio telling us that there would be no power cuts as a result of the strike. Ten minutes after his assurances there were power cuts.
PANORKOS was on the radio show to defend the violent behaviour by members of his union outside the legislature the previous day. The EAC mob, exercising the sacred rights to strike and protest, laid siege on the legislature, threw fire-crackers and stones, smashed windows, fought with cops, shouted abuse at deputies and invaded the building.
But as Panorkos explained on the show, his angry mob was not to blame for its aggressive and violent behaviour. The protesters, he authoritatively informed us, had been provoked by finance minister Haris Georgiades, who insisted on being driven through the mob to get to the legislature where he was expected to attend the House finance committee meeting that was to discuss the privatisation bill.
Haris, from his car, made a gesture that sparked the fury of the protesters that were shouting abuse at him. It was not a rude gesture – he just wagged his index finger at them. The minister should have gone into the legislature through a back entrance so he would not provoke the peaceful protesters, said Panorkos.
When the presenter asked why the protesters had taken firecrackers with them if they had no intention of resorting to violence, Panorkos moved on to another topic.
THE POLICE command came under fire from justice minister Ionas Nicolaou for not taking adequate measures to protect the legislature from the EAC mob. He had a point, this being the first time in history that cops were involved in clashes with a violent mob and were not accused by politicians and hacks of using excessive force.
Several politicians went as far as to suggest that the cops used inadequate force to control the crowd. Nobody, not even Ionas, saw anything wrong with the fact that not a single EAC thug had been arrested by the cops for violent and threatening behaviour. Is it OK to attack cops and cause damage to property when it is in the name of workers’ rights?
Maybe the cops felt it would have been wrong to arrest protesters that had been so irresponsibly provoked by Haris’ unacceptable finger-wagging.
THE OVERTIME ban at Limassol port which has cost the economy big bucks and is driving away business was also extended as a result of a provocation, but not by Haris.
A port union boss explained that the ban would have been lifted the Friday before last so the port would operate during the weekend (with the ban in place, the port closed down from Friday lunch-time until Monday morning and no ships could dock or leave).
A meeting of the union members, to vote the lifting of the ban, was arranged for Friday 21st. But port workers were so incensed by public comments made against the overtime ban by forwarders, who were losing money, they voted to keep it in place. The comments were so provocative port workers felt they had to be punished, the union boss said.
Port workers, who took action in protest against the government’s decision to cut overtime rates, were working this weekend after the finance ministry agreed to have talks with them and forwarders took a vow of silence.
ANOTHER union boss enjoyed five minutes of fame this week after issuing a public threat to his party boss Ethnarch Junior. Alecos Tryfonides, general secretary of a CyTA union and member of the DIKO central committee came up with a sound-bite that received non-stop air play on Tuesday, the day before his party’s vote on leaving the government.
Referring to Junior, he said: “They should think because tomorrow there is the Central Committee meeting. I am warning him (Junior) publicly. The principles of DIKO are not only on the Cyprus problem. We will not get a divorce from Anastasiades and sleep with Averof.”
DIKO’s other principle he was referring to was the keeping of SGOs under state ownership so the privileges and big salaries of CyTA workers, like Tryfonides, could be safeguarded. He was not implying that Nik was better in bed than Averof, but referring to the latter’s support for privatisation, which was against DIKO’s principles.
JUNIOR betrayed his neo-liberal beliefs in reaching a deal with Tryfonides. He agreed to add an amendment to the government’s privatisation bill which ensured that SGO workers could never be made redundant, not even if the department they were working for was closed down. Until now, this privilege was only enjoyed by public parasites.
In exchange for this, it was reported, Tryfonides agreed to vote in favour of Junior’s proposal for DIKO to leave the government. The prince of negativity was desperate for votes because it was uncertain the central committee would have backed his proposal. In the end, Junior got his way with 97 votes for and 81 against, bringing joy and happiness to all of us.
THE APPEARANCE of Tryfonides provided an answer to a mystery of the last few years. Why had a total incompetent, who had presided over a long list of cock-ups, been kept as acting director of the Nicosia Central Prisons for so long?
I refer to Giorgos Tryfonides who was appointed acting director in 2009 and was only relieved of his duties in January after five prisoners had committed suicide in the space of seven months. He was kept in his post because he had the high protection of DIKO that has another principle apart from the Cyprob – it always takes care of its own, no matter how useless they are at their state job.
DIKO has always been a family party. Its current general secretary is Marinos Moushioutas, son of a former DIKO deputy, who also has a well-paid state job. He is the municipal secretary at Nicosia municipality. His sister, Emanuella, is a civil servant, who briefly served as commissioner for the reform of the civil service. Living off the taxpayer is a key feature of the patriotism of DIKO members.
REGULAR guest of the Lazarus patriotic show, the super bash-patriotic Costas Mavrides, who narrowly lost in his bid to get elected deputy leader of DIKO last December, is being a bit disingenuous. Lazarus always presents him as ‘the academic Costas Mavrides’.
Has he forgotten to inform Lazarus that he is no longer an academic? He is a civil servant at the labour ministry, which is nothing to be ashamed of, especially as I am informed he landed this cushy, well-paid, job on merit and not because he was a member of DIKO.
APART from its patriotic mission to prevent a settlement of the Cyprob, DIKO also keeps us entertained with its antics. On Thursday in the legislature, five of the eight DIKO deputies abstained in the vote on the government’s privatisation bill, thus preventing its approval.
Approval is a condition for the release of the next tranche of the troika loan. It was a bizarre decision because without the troika money, the government would not be able to pay March public sector wages and pensions, something that would affect more members of DIKO than any other party.
When he heard about the vote, a member of the government asked a DIKO minister if he could help him understand the logic of voting against the bill. The minister explained that logic could never explain DIKO actions and decisions. To understand them you had to think dikoically, something only Dikheads could do.
THE BILL will be re-submitted to the legislature which has scheduled a plenum on Tuesday so it could be voted through. Its title and a couple of sentences would be changed because it is unconstitutional to vote a second time on a bill that was rejected.
The decision angered the holier than thou communists of AKEL, their spokesman Giorgos Loucaides claiming did this “not only constitute disrespect for the legislature it also constitutes a mockery of the institutions, a blow to democracy and a rubbishing of the dignity of citizens”. The party had written to the House president urging him not to accept the tabling of the bill as this violated House regulations.
This is the same party which, back in September, agreed to the re-submission of the co-ops bill, with some cosmetic changes, just a few hours after it had been defeated in the plenum. This did not constitute disrespect for the legislature or a mockery of the institutions.
OUR GOOD friend Thoukis, who writes a weekly column in Politis, might be good friends with Professor Panicos but does he also have to act like his personal publicist?
Last Sunday he informed us that the Central Bank had “placed the banking system in the occupied area under its microscope and a group of experts has been studying all international reports relating to it.”
Professor Panicos, according to Thoukis, was showing a personal interest in the matter and had recently declared that a Cyprob settlement would give a massive push to the economy. But alas, the 24 banks operating in the north were facing a similar problem to our banks – many NPLs.
If our Turkish Cypriot brothers require help, we would be very happy to send them the professor to sort out their banking sector just like he sorted out ours. I think even DIKO would support such confidence-wrecking measure.
IT APPEARS that the memo, sent out by Bank of Cyprus CEO John Hourican warning staff against leaking information to the press was ignored by some of them. On Tuesday, Politis reported that Hourican had been negotiating the sale of the BoC’s Russian bank Uniastrum as well as other assets, without consulting the board of directors.
The paper said the board was completely in the dark about the negotiations. You do not have to be a detective to guess the source of the leak was a member of the board, whom Hourican has no power over.
Things must be a bit desperate at the dear old BoC. Last week the board invited Archbishop Chrys to carry out a blessing at its HQ, which was attended by hundreds of staff including Hourican who, reportedly, had a ‘what am I doing in this nut-house’ look on his face.
He obviously has not seen the academic study which showed that banks blessed by Archbishops always have better results than those that snub the Church.
WE WOULD like to close on a positive note. We should all be grateful that Qatar decided against undertaking the big development project opposite the Hilton Hotel because the Qataris record on worker safety is truly appalling. According to Private Eye magazine, 400 Nepalese migrant construction workers have been killed so far in Qatar as it prepares for the hosting of the 2022 World Cup.
