AS A SHAREHOLDER of both the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki, our establishment would like to express its abhorrence at the training deal struck between the Association of commercial banks and the newly-formed Institute of Banking Studies (IBS) in which bank employees’ union ETYK, has a five per cent shareholding.
The mere fact that ETYK, the root of most of the banking sector’s problems, has a stake in this institute should have been enough reason for the banks to refuse to do business with it. We bank shareholders know the dangerously low profitability of the banks is the result of unacceptably high labour costs, forced on them by the bullying boss of ETYK, Loizos Hadjicostis.
Not so long ago foreign consultants warned the high labour costs posed a serious danger to the future profitability of Cyprus banks. So instead of looking at ways of limiting the powers of ETYK – as any sensibly-run business which looks after the interests of its shareholders would have done – the spineless, short-sighted bank bosses have decided to finance the enemy’s business venture.
Even if they do not care about the interests of their shareholders, do bank bosses not possess a shred of pride? Hadjicostis has been screwing them for years and instead of looking at ways to cut the self-important, little upstart down to size, they are helping him further strengthen his union, so he can continue to publicly humiliate them.
The cowards who run the banks also know the training course offered by the IBS is much less rigorous than the course offered by the British-based, Chartered Institute of Bankers, which had been standard qualification recognised by the banks for decades now.
In short, not only will they be helping Hadjicostis’ union empire make more money (they pay two thirds of the £4,500 fee for the course), but they will also be getting less well-qualified staff, which ETYK will demand are treated equally (for promotions) with graduates of the more rigorous course. With such people in charge is it any wonder the banks seem to be in terminal decline?
IF A SINGLE head honcho of the banks had any cojones, he would have refused to recognise any Institute in which ETYK had a stake and told it to go to hell. But, to be fair the decision was not so simple.
As was reported in Politis, which broke the story on Friday, a big shareholder in IBS is AAVK Promotions Ltd, a company owned exclusively by the daughter and wife of the Governor of the Central Bank, Christodoulos Christodoulou. AAVK has a 44 per cent stake in the Institute of Banking Studies while a Greece-based company, owned by a bank, has the remaining 51 per cent.
So could the banks have refused to recognise the Institute, when they knew that blood relatives of the man, who oversees and regulates their activities, had a major shareholding in the company? Without the recognition of its courses by the banks, IBS would have no customers. If the banks refused to send staff to IBS, would the decision not have been taken as a mega-snub of his daughter’s business, by Governor Ttooulis?
Could the banks have risked the possibility of incurring the wrath of Ttooulis of Avgorou by refusing to do business with his daughter’s Institute? Or could the bankers have calculated that by helping the daughter’s business, they would have curried favour with the father, who would be less tough on them.
According to bank sources, Ttooulis exercises much stricter control on the banks, than his predecessor, (whose son’s auditing firm was attracting an inordinate amount of offshore companies when he was the Gov) but will he continue to do so now that his daughter’s business will depend on them?
I CANNOT resist the cliché, that “only in the plantation and totalitarian regimes”, do such suspect business relationships evolve – the bank employees union going into partnership with the daughter and wife of the Governor of the Central Bank to sell services to the banks. And only in a banana plantation would the Governor claim there is nothing wrong with such an arrangement.
In fact, Ttooulis issued a strong-worded statement on Friday morning, in response to Politis story published. He said: “I have no connection with any of the business activities of my daughter, who is aged 33, married for 12 years, and has every right to practise – as an independent business entity – any profession or make any economic or social choice, as free citizen of the Republic of Cyprus.”
Any groundless allegations, “linking me with the professional activities of my daughter constitutes vile fabrications,” insisted the plantation’s highest-paid public official, who will enter the record books as the only Bananiot father who does not take an interest in, or try to help, his daughter’s business. How can he be so heartless, putting duty above the welfare of his only child, not even being prepared to pick up the phone ask a small favour for her sake?
He now runs the risk of being expelled from the plantation’s ruling elite, because membership is conditional on using your public position to help your kids advance socially and make money.
LESS THAN a week after predicting the planned murders of the faithful who went to Ayios Mamas church, our Justice Minister Doros Theodorou got things wrong yet again. Last Sunday, security forces were put on high alert, after Doros received information about the presence of Chechen separatists in the occupied north where they were being trained in terrorist warfare.
The next day the presidential spokesman, Marios Karoyian, issued a statement informing us that the minister’s claims were complete and utter nonsense. While there were a few Chechen families living in the north, “no evidence whatsoever has come to light indicating participation of these people in terrorist activities,” said Karoyian.
Someone should tell Doros that his intelligence gathering sucks, as he seems incapable of arriving at this conclusion by himself.
OUR GRATITUDE should be conveyed to EU enlargement commissioner Gunther Verheugen, for volunteering to be this month’s most hated foreign official as our politicians had ran out of foreigners to attack and were bored of using DISY führer Nice Nik, as the target for their abusive rhetoric.
With the Denktator, keeping a low profile, in semi-retirement, they do not have Turkish Bananiot politician worth pillorying either. They have all attempted to elevate Talat to chief hate figure, but he does not seem to inspire them like old Rauf did. At least Verheugen took the pressure off the Führer for a couple of days.
The undiplomatic German we used to adore before the referendum provoked a collective, knee-jerk reaction for saying that the Cyprob would not influence the EU’s decision on whether to give Turkey a start date for negotiations. He was immediately christened a “biased, anti-Cypriot Turkophile” as he entered the pantheon of the enemies of the plantation.
Only Commissar Christofias, showed restraint and responded as a true statesman. He said: “Statements of this type do not help soften the scepticism of Greek Cypriots towards the EU.” He also had a meeting with the EU ambassador whom he warned that “Verheugen’s statements would increase Euro-scepticism in Cyprus”.
THE COMMISSAR has been complaining for some time now because the hated führer had said that DISY positions on the Cyprob were similar to those of AKEL. This, according to the commissar was “unethical” and “politically damaging”. He was complaining because the leader of the biggest party was agreeing with him.
Now if the Führer said that AKEL were a bunch of cowardly opportunists, led by a petty-minded despot, who was knowingly being taken for a ride by the Ethnarch, because his priority was being in power, Christofias would have applauded him and welcomed the criticism as politically constructive and ethical.
Or perhaps the Führer should have said that DISY disagreed with the commies but admitted that AKEL’s schizophrenic positions on the Cyprob were much better than his own party’s.
DEMOCRACY is alive and well in Akel as Thursday’s meeting of the Central Committee showed. The Commissar spoke for two hours, and then allowed three of his lap-dogs to make brief speeches before closing the democratic debate. The announcement about the decisions of the meeting had been prepared in advance and was given to the participants before the meeting.
In his speech the liberal commissar slammed Politis newspaper for its hostility towards AKEL. Why did he not say anything bad about Alithia which is even more critical of the commies? Alithia is pro-DISY and is therefore not taken seriously by the comrades, whereas Politis, being politically independent, is read by many Akelites.
The big-headed commissar just cannot tolerate his sheep reading a paper which questions his leadership, judgment and intelligence. He is happy for them to read the obsequious Phil, which treats him with the same slavish deference Pravda reserved for Leonid Brezhnev.
A classic report carried by Phil this week illustrates the point. The Commissar was spotted by Phil’s intrepid reporter on the beach in Limassol and he wrote: “Christofias was speaking to quite a few children who were at the beach and ran to give him their hand. He was in high spirits and even though he went to the beach privately with his wife, he did not avoid chatting with and smiling at whoever he met.”
This is the kind of cringe-making reports the commissar likes Akelites to read about him. Personally I would have liked to know what he looked like in his swimming-costume? Does he wear Bermuda shorts or a slip? What suntan oil doe he use?
IS TURKISH Bananiot publisher and hack, Sener Levent sane? I have read several of his columns this week, published in Greek in Politis, and not once did I understand what he was trying to say. Perhaps it is the fault of the translator, but I am sure it was not the translator’s idea to mention, in his open letter to Tassos, last Friday, that “a while ago I put the mousakas on the fire, sprinkled it with a little salt and picked up the pen”.
This was followed by an outburst of incoherent thoughts, which were concluded thus: “Let me go and check the mousakas before it burns. If you like mousakas I’ll keep a plate. I await your response”. Yesterday he published the second part of his letter to Tassos. I read through it to find out if the mousakas was burnt, but the loony Levent did not even mention it. Why?
EDEK chief, Yiannakis Omirou, we are informed, sent a telegram to the President of Libya, Colonel Gaddafi to congratulate him on the 35th anniversary of the revolution in Libya. Omirou wished “the friendly people of Libya progress, health and happiness,” said an Edek press release. “I assure you we will continue to work for the strengthening of the co-operation and solidarity between our peoples,” he concluded.
Omirou may have felt duty-bound to send this pathetic telegram to the Libyan dictator, but if he had a brain he would have kept it a secret instead of issuing a press release to tell us about it. Was he congratulating Gaddafi for 35 years of totalitarianism? And why did he not wish the “friendly people of Libya” apart from progress, health and happiness, democratic elections as well?
STAVROS Evagorou, the AKEL deputy, is apparently concerned about the rise of extremist nationalism and was quoted as saying the following: “There are forces which are nationalist to the extreme and do not even want to see a picture of a Turk, and I do not mean Mr Papadopoulos.” Did he really think he had to clarify that he did not mean Tassos?
FORMER mayor of Nicosia Lellos Demetriades, who has never been a great fan of our column even though he seems to read it every week, has written to the editor to complain about an item we carried last week (see Letters To The Editor).
“The truth is that I was never invited by the Cyprus Olympic Committee or anybody else to attend (as their guest or otherwise) and Patroclos seems to be imagining things,” he wrote with reference to the Athens Olympics.
I know that my defence would not stand up in a court of law, but the fact is that I was merely re-printing what had appeared in a letter published in Phileleftheros on August 21 from a certain Petros Alexakis, complaining that the Kyrenia mayor had not been invited to the Olympics.
I apologise to Lellos for this and he need not worry or lose any more sleep on my behalf. I assure him that my capacity to understand what is going on around me and what my informers tell me has not been greatly impaired. Let me go and check the mousakas before it burns, as Sener would say.
