The structural problems of the economy and the excessive spending of an oversized state mechanism needs to be seriously tackled, President Demetris Christofias told public servants yesterday.
Speaking at the 47th conference of public servants union PASYDY, Christofias said mobilisation of all forces, all people, was necessary to be able to cope, at a time of economic crisis, and advance towards a new era of progress and development.
To achieve this, there was a need, and an opportunity, “to courageously tackle the structural problems of our economy, the excessive spending of an oversized state mechanism.”
Christofias urged civil servants to do their best to increase productivity and improve the quality of service. “We want a civil servant who has a sense of mission,” Christofias said, calling on public servants to proceed to a constructive dialogue and to show “discipline and restraint”
“In this way you will all contribute to the achievement of our ambitious targets for a modern, efficient public service,” he added.
The state sector employs some 50,000 people and is widely considered to be inefficient and privileged.
He said one of the chronic problems in the public sector, which hindered the smooth functioning of the public service was the lack of an effective system of staff appraisals. The way things operated currently resulted in individuals lacking incentive and operating on a non-collective level.
A new evaluation system was on the way, Christofias said, which has yet to be agreed with unions. Also he said that using EU funds and support, 2,500 civil servants at managerial level would receive new training by 2015.
PASYDY insists that the state should not be targeting the public service and should instead focus on tax evasion to generate income amid the economic crisis.
“In times of adverse economic developments it is usual phenomenon for the civil service to become the target of criticism, mainly from employer organisations, specific deputies and part of the mass media,” the union’s general-secretary Glafkos Hadjipetrou said. “In times of crisis, solutions are not found by seeking scapegoats.”
Hadjipetrou said it was not right to disregard the contribution of the civil service, nor was the sowing discord between workers by making references to a “chasm” in wages between the public and private sector.
“The real chasm exists between wage earners and those living in opulence and do not have a tax record,” Hadjipetrou said.
The head of PASYDY slammed employers who took shots at the civil service and state salaries, adding that “they seem to forget that with the same number of public servants and the same payroll, Cyprus … achieved its accession to the eurozone.”
Civil servants had agreed to a wage freeze in 2004 to help the island join the eurozone.
Christofias did stress that tackling the “scourge of tax evasion” was imperative to stop the state from losing significant revenue and social injustice.
The government has prepared 22 proposals to fight tax evasion. They are expected to be discussed by the cabinet next week.
The government is currently processing alternative scenarios in a bid to stave off the negative effects of the global crisis that has belatedly hit Cyprus.
“We are convinced that if we take the right financial measures now – with the consent of the social partners and all political forces — we will secure the development and prosperity of the Cypriot economy for many years,” Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis told the PASYDY conference.
