By Martin Hellicar
COMMUNICATION Minister Averoff Neophytou’s caustic attack on “foot- dragging” civil servants sparked a major political row yesterday, with opposition parties accusing the Minister of having a hidden agenda.
The government meanwhile did its best to dampen the situation, insisting “freeloading” public servants were the exception rather than the rule.
The seeds for the dispute were sown on Friday, when Neophytou, fresh from a surprise inspection of Paphos government departments, charged that certain civil servants were “simply not productive enough to justify their salaries”.
Unsurprisingly, the Minister’s statement brought a reaction from the powerful public service union, Pasydy. In a statement yesterday, the union expressed “intense displeasure” at Neophytou’s “generalised” statements. Pasydy called on the Minister to look to his own responsibilities in the matter and to avoid self-projection.
Opposition parties, with ‘big guns’ Akel to the fore, quickly joined the fray, charging that Neophytou’s covert aim was to drag down the civil service in order to usher in privatisation.
Andros Kyprianou, a member of the Akel political office, continued the attack on Neophytou yesterday.
Kyprianou admitted that there were indeed problems within the civil service, but said the Minister was deliberately exaggerating the situation.
“Mr Neophytou never misses a chance to give excessive dimensions to certain problems within the civil service with but one aim, that is that everything Mr Neophytou states translates into a drive to have privatisation of the public sector,” Kyprianou said.
Doros Theodorou, a deputy for Kisos, said the Minister was out to “make an impression”. Kyprianou and Theodorou agreed that Neophytou was often prone to exaggerating for effect.
Theodorou said the Minister’s attack on civil servants was “unacceptable and unjust”.
Interior Minister Christodoulos Christodoulou rushed to the defence of his cabinet colleague yesterday. Christodoulou insisted the government was not after privatising the public sector. The aim, the Interior Minister said, was to liberalise the sector, in order to come into line with EU norms.
Christodoulou did, however, also admit that the measures needed to solve many inefficiency problems in the civil service had not been implemented yet.
Minister Neophytou stuck to his guns yesterday, calling a news conference during which he divulged some of the details of the “inefficiencies” he had discovered during his spot-checks of government departments.
The general secretary of the Communications Ministry, Vassos Pyrgos, described these findings. He said a supervisor at a vehicle inspection centre had been found missing from his post at 8.30 am. The supervisor rang the centre at 9 am on the morning of Neophytou’s unannounced visit to say that something had come up and he had been unavoidably detained, Pyrgos said. Another example, the Ministry official said, was a supervisor at a Paphos district Public Works department office who had gone on leave without informing the office managers.
Neophytou, who vowed that his surprise spot-checks would continue, said the public service was “ailing and in desperate need of improvement”. He spoke of “sacred cows” within the public service that “no one dared to touch”. The Minister promised things were about to change: “We are not afraid to put our hands in the hot coals. I think it is time for some bitter truths to be told.”
But he was not all fire and thunder, insisting that his criticisms were aimed only at a minority of civil servants. Most government employees were conscientious individuals, Neophytou said.
He also called for an end to squabbling over the issue, pointing out that no one disagreed over the need to improve the civil service.
“There is no room for colours in these things, we must not colour them red, white or blue, we must not assign party labels because we believe that quality service for citizens is among the aims and goals of all, whether in government or in opposition.”
Government spokesman Michalis Papapetrou appeared keen to defuse the situation by stating that it was a “small number” of civil servants who were giving the whole sector a bad name.
Papapetrou said most public servants did their best to produce in the face of “bureaucratic and antiquated” systems.
“Despite this, despite the shortcomings and gaps in the system, despite the irresponsibility of (some) staff, the government believes that the public service as a body carries out a noteworthy job, though there is of course much room for improvement.”
The spokesman called on everyone to work together to improve the civil service.
