DISY Vice President Averoff Neophytou continued his attacks on Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis and the government’s economic policy yesterday, accusing them of being generous to the rich with tax-payers’ money and trading slogans to those on low incomes.
Neophytou said that “instead of reducing the cost of the state machinery, the government are cramming the civil service with new employees, and in place of a targeted social policy they are being free-handed in sharing out the sweat, effort and pains of the Cypriot tax-payer in grants to the rich and millionaires who do not need to receive Easter bonus benefit cheques.”
Referring to statements on the economy by Stavrakis on Thursday, Neophytou said: “Am I to believe that the engaging Finance Minister, with such academic accomplishments in economics and such a successful career in the banking sector, does not realise that this policy is wrong? Or is he just carrying out the directives from [AKEL headquarters in] Ezikia Papaioannou Street, which are leading us into an economic dead-end?”
Neophytou repeated his call to reform the CoLA (automatic wage-indexation system), saying that “a politician should be the voice of the under-privileged citizen. That is how I understand my role in politics. We should not be trading slogans to the cleaner, the builder and the labourer, sloganising that we are striving and battling to reduce social inequalities, and at the same time insisting on maintaining policies which increase civil inequalities.”
He added that “politicians and trade unionists are judged on their policies, and I insist that the current form of the CoLA is socially unfair, it increases social inequality”, and then challenged politicians and trade unionists alike to refute his claim.
PEO trade union General Secretary Pambis Kiritsis took up that challenge yesterday, saying in a statement that Neophytou was again raising the matter of reforming the CoLA “with surprising flippancy”, adding that the DISY MP “unfortunately is distorting our views in an attempt to appear suddenly as the protector of the poor and the weak.”
Speaking to the press yesterday, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou gave short shrift to Neophytou’s comments, saying: “This government deals with all matters very seriously, and especially the economy, against a background of the global economic crisis. We believe strongly that it is not appropriate to use [the economy] to make witticisms or strike poses on TV.”
Stavrakis chose not to respond yesterday to Neophytou’s latest jibes, simply telling reporters that “a lot of publicity on economic matters doesn’t help.”
