WE ARE HAPPY to report that the slow season for news is officially over and we no longer have to devote our entire output to Cyprob related items such as the overseas Cypriots, George Iacovou and the triptych for lack of better material.
This does not mean we will turn our back on our number one national problem for 50 years, which is much more deserving of a 50-year anniversary celebration than the Cyprus Republic that is getting one in October. Why not also have a Cyprob anniversary?
We could invite all the UN Chiefs and Special Representatives and honour them for their contribution towards keeping it alive all these years and give awards (posthumously, if necessary) to the presidents who bravely resisted foreign conspiracies to have it closed prematurely.
There might be disagreements about the age of the Cyprob, with some claiming that it came into existence before the Neolithic period, but we cannot keep everyone happy. The fact is that it is at least as old as the Republic and deserves formal recognition, not just for surviving all these years but for raising the world profile of our inconsequential island.
Let’s face it, nobody would have heard of the Cyprus Republic if it were not for the Cyprob, which is why it should have its own official anniversary. If nothing else, it would send out the message to all foreign do-gooders that we will resist any attempt at speedy closure. And another thing – our Turkish Cypriot brothers would also join in the anniversary celebrations.
DARK CLOUDS have descended over another never-ending Cyprob – Cyprus Airways. The national carrier’s losses for the first six months of this year were €25.5 million, which meant that by December they could climb to €40 million or more.
The amount could be further boosted if the airline’s altruistic pilots win the law suit they filed against the company, for docking 10 per cent off their salaries since 2005 as part of the action plan for survival. The pilots, the company’s best-paid workers, claim that their union never gave its consent to the 10 per cent pay cut and that it was arbitrarily imposed on them.
If they win, the company would have to cough up several million euro it does not have in back pay to them. It would be another victory for the proletariat and practical proof of the government’s claim that society’s have-nots would not have to shoulder the cost of the recession.
THE NEWS about the losses sparked a passionate but boring public debate about the future of the two state-owned airlines, with our establishment’s favourite neo-liberal, Averof Neophytou of DISY insisting that the only way forward was privatisation.
There was a slight problem with his suggestion as there are not too many businessmen eager to invest in a company piling up losses and, as a bonus, have to deal with the pilots’ union. Anyway, this not an option as the government, backed by its AKEL spokesmen, made it clear that it would not surrender its prerogative to mismanage the company, because selling off public assets (liabilities, in this case) was against its ideology.
Most of the guests talking about the future (or lack of) of Cyprus Airways on the morning radio shows were either politicians or union leaders, the people most to blame for the colossal mess it is in. Nobody from the airline’s management was invited to talk on the shows, probably because they do not have a say in the running of the company.
This is a job best left to the business expertise of politicians and union bosses.
THE POLITICIANS have decreed that the merger of Eurocypria and Cyprus Airways is the only path to survival. Five years ago, they all backed the sale of Eurocypria – then a subsidiary of the national carrier – to the state as this was the only path to survival and the taxpayer paid €23 million to buy it.
Having saved the mother company from bankruptcy in ’05, this year the taxpayer gave Eurocypria €35 million to save it from bankruptcy. We paid €58 million plus whatever the merger will cost for the politicians to discover that Eurocypria and Cyprus Airways should be part of the same company to survive.
It took them five years and €58 million (not to mention part of the losses accumulated by CY in this period) to realise that having two airlines competing for business in the tiny Kyproulla market that could barely sustain one airline, would drive both to bankruptcy.
A hundred million euro was a bit pricey for a course in business for idiots.
NO EXPLANATION was ever given for the decision of former executive chairman of Cyprus Airways, Kikis Lazarides, to submit his resignation to the comrade president. Twice the comrade refused to accept the resignation, but eventually accepted it when it was submitted for a third time at the beginning of July.
Why was Kikis, despite enjoying the full confidence of the comrade, so keen on giving up his high profile post? He is a smart guy who would have known that the company’s six-monthly results would be disastrous and probably wanted to leave before the merde hit the fan. The prospect of being associated with such huge losses and having Averof publicly slamming his leadership was more than he could bear at the end of a long and distinguished career.
His departure in July may have been a case of the captain leaving a sinking ship before the rats smelt that it was going down.
IN LAST week’s edition devoted to the overseas Cypriots, we had nothing about one of the leading personalities of the diaspora – Peter Papanicolaou, the Supreme President of the Cyprus Federation of America and buddy of comrade Tof.
Peter, formerly known as Panicos, is more of a behind-the-scenes man, in contrast to his rival Phillip Christopher who likes public oratory and has grand political ambitions, which include the presidency of Kyproulla. Peter, who is as influential as Philip in Washington, likes to befriend presidents (not of the US) and invite them to his pad in Astoria for souvla. Our last three presidents have been guests at his house, while last year he went on holiday with the comrade.
He was here for the conference and the Saturday before last he gave a souvla dinner at his holiday pad in Larnaca at which the comrade president and his missus were among his distinguished guests. UN Special Rep Lisa Buttenheim was also invited but we have not managed to establish whether she attended.
Former Congressman John Brademas was so keen to attend the dinner that he and his wife were driven to chez Panicos straight from Larnaca airport, after a long a tiring flight. You just cannot turn down an invitation to dinner from a Supreme president.
IN THE END, Phil’s supreme boss Nik Pattichis was not willing to pay the price Zeus Hadjicostis was asking for the Dias media group. But the good news for Zeus is that he has found someone else willing to pay silly money for his group.
A brief announcement was issued on Thursday, saying that the Dias Publishing Group and Sigma TV had “agreed to co-operate for the development and expansion of their operations in the media field with NEP Ekdosis.” NEP is owned by wealthy Greek businessman Lavrentis Lavrentiades.
There was no mention of a buy-out, but our establishment has learnt that Lavrentiades paid a sum in the region of €26 million for a controlling stake (51 per cent) in Dias and Sigma and has an option of buying the remaining stock in the future.
The purchase was meant to have been kept secret, but how could you keep a €26m transaction, involving banks, lawyers and accountants, secret in Cyprus? It just doesn’t happen.
SPEAKING of Sigma TV, we hear that its production team has just completed the films advertising UNDP programmes offering financial assistance to bi-communal initiatives. In the past, Sigma and its stable-mate Simerini, branded such financial assistance ‘bribery’ and the recipients ‘enemies of Cyprus’, but this view was modified after the former was awarded the contract to produce the ads inviting the enemies of Cyprus to apply for bribe money.
The adverts promoting the Engage programme would be broadcast at the end of the month. But this may be a bit too late as Engage has been in operation since July 2009 and has already given most of its money to bi-communal projects. The TV adverts are a bit pointless now, but the UNDP has budgeted for them so it will show them anyway. It’s US money that is being wasted, so who cares?
IT WAS lovely to see that a beautiful friendship is developing between Dervis and Demetris and that the dinner-bash at the Kellaki dacha was a big success. They were both beaming with joy after its completion, giving rise to suspicions that someone spiked the wine with ‘happy pills’.
On a more serious level, both the comrade’s representatives, Iacovou and Emiliou, were invited to the dinner suggesting that the latter is most definitely the former’s successor-in-waiting. At Monday’s meeting of the two leaders’ representatives, the comrade sent the out-of-favour Yiorkos, but probably instructed him not to discuss anything in Emiliou’s absence. The meeting lasted 15 minutes.
FORMER foreign minister Yiorkos Lillikas was back on the air-waves this week talking disparagingly about Dem’s and Derv’s dinner diplomacy. He was particularly scathing about Dem’s visit to Derv’s house, because all the symbols of the state had been removed from the president’s limo when was driven to the north.
This was a bad decision by the president, setting a very bad example, said a gravely concerned Lillikas. When the president of the republic was crossing north without the flag and symbol of the state on his limo, he sent the message that it was acceptable to visit the north.
And this undermined all the work done by ordinary Greek Cypriots through the internet to prevent celebrities from visiting the occupied territory, as they successfully did in the case of Jennifer Lopez.
What if J-Lo had seen the president, crossing in an unmarked car? Would she not have taken this to mean that it was OK to perform at a hotel built on stolen Greek Cypriot land, asked the anxious Lillikas. He should not worry too much. There is a bigger chance of Cyprus Airways turning a profit at the end of the year, than J-Lo seeing the comrade visiting the north on TV.
STAYING on the subject of the presidential limo, it might be a good idea if the Republic’s flag and the symbols of the state were removed when the comrade’s chauffeur parked the Merc on a double yellow line, as he did on Wednesday evening outside the Palace theatre in Nicosia.
It would be better not to advertise the leading citizen’s contempt for traffic rules. We will not say anything about the half a dozen plainclothes cops standing indifferently, around the illegally parked cars (the escort car was also on the double yellow line), because now they have become members’ of the public parasites union Pasydy they have the right to perform their duties badly.
WORKERS of the Larnaca Airport control tower seem determined to help Cyprus Airways and Eurocypria lose even more money this year because they do not want to walk through metal detectors when they go to work.
Air traffic controllers, Met staff and CyTA technicians had threatened to call a strike over the matter, but postponed action to give the communications minister time to give in to their demand. They want to be body searched instead because they claim the radiation of the metal detectors was a health risk. Their union refused to accept measurements that showed the radiation was extremely low, in what is blatant case of union bullying.
The minister should grant their demand, but she should put a couple of hairy, sweaty, overweight Paphos cops in charge of the body searches and instruct them to strip search the control tower workers every time they report for work.
MORE LIGHT was shed on the Curium beach poo mystery by a customer. She informed as that every time the the Episkopi mukhtar, “opens his ill-informed mouth (under pressure from a specific restaurant at Curium) turtles are killed deliberately. The last time he gave a radio interview four turtle deaths immediately followed.”
So who are having dumps in the Curium sea? We will have to wait for the lab results from the US. For now we will assume that the turtles are innocent, in order to protect an endangered species, and make British soldiers the number one suspects.
