By Patroclos
IN THE END, last Friday’s planned 24-hour strike – subsequently cut to a 12-hour work stoppage – by all public parasites was eventually called off after the misunderstanding which had caused the ugly union bosses to declare war on the government was settled by the Prez Nik.
This was the explanation given by the miserable PASYDY boss Glafcos Hadjiklamouris after Thursday’s meeting at the palazzo at which the government’s humiliation was finally formalised. The distortion caused by the non-taxation of the retirement bonus, which Finance Minister Harris Georgiades wanted to tackle is no longer an issue.
As for the additional €100 million that the government needed to cut from its 2015 spending to cover the cost of the minimum guaranteed income, it will now have to come from other savings. It could reduce the monthly pensions of the elderly – as long as they are not retired public parasites because that would be unconstitutional – which would be a much fairer arrangement than unjustly taxing the retirement bonuses (of 200 and 300 grand) given to poor old parasites to supplement their super-big pensions.
AT LEAST Thursday’s meeting did not go too badly. Given how the dispute had developed over the week we had expected prez to announce a 10 per cent increase in the parasites’ retirement bonus in order to ingratiate himself with this big group of voters.
Last Monday with a strike at schools, hospitals and government offices on the cards he dropped the taxation idea and offered to pay the bonus in instalments, over five years. After the unions rejected the idea, he offered to pay interest on the instalments; the increase was the next logical step, but it did not happen.
The government spokesman said that during Thursday’s meeting with union bullies, the prez praised “the responsible stance of the unions and the workers who had contributed significantly to the correction course of public finances and the economy.”
Nik’s need to be loved is so overpowering he will even butter up the union wolves in the hope of winning their affection.
THE HEAD of the Cyprus Automobile Association, Antonis Michaelides was very proud of the fact that he had arranged for the Cyprus Rally that started on Friday to go through the occupied area for the first time in its history.
However being of the bash-patriot school of thought – he served as minister in the Ethnarch’s government – he was at pains to explain that all the arrangements were made with Turkish Cypriot car-lovers and not with occupation regime. He had not even been in contact with the pseudo-police he stressed, trying to convince the host of the Lazarus patriotic radio show that he was not guilty of a lack of patriotism in involving the Turks in the rally.
Michaelides was proud that car-lovers from both sides of the divide would be brought together and explained that we had given nothing away as the Republic’s ambulances and fire-trucks would support the rally in the north while broadcasting rights belonged to the CyBC which would be filming in the occupied area as well.
He deserves our congratulations, because, not only has the upgrading of the pseudo-state been avoided, but his actions may have led to its downgrading.
HE MAY have won over the bash-patriots with his rally arrangements, but there were drivers thirsting for Michaelides’ blood on Friday as they sat in the appalling traffic chaos that was created in the centre of Nicosia. All the main roads were chock-a-bloc with cars because streets in central Nicosia were closed to traffic to make way for the rally.
Many of our customers swore abuse at the rally organisers and wondered why the rally did not start on a Sunday when the central streets were empty. The police had given prior warning about the street closures. The police spokesman appeared on radio shows to inform the public about the arrangements.
After 9.30am on Friday certain streets would be closed, he said adding that these would be open again between 2pm and 4pm, “so that public employees can drive home when they finish work.” Inconveniencing the public parasites, like the taxation of the retirement bonus, is a violation of the constitution.
DOES the President of Kyproulla, when he is sworn in, also take an oath guaranteeing a big income to members of the Kenevezou family? When Ethnarch Tassos was running the mad-house, he ordered his lap-dogs at the CyBC to hire the daughter of the family, Emilia, as a television news presenter on a salary of seven grand a month.
It was a hell of lot of money just for being able to read the news with a bit of attitude and ask studio guests a few obvious questions once in a while, but Kenevezou was the late Ethnarch’s god-daughter so the principles of rusfeti dictated that she was given a special deal. Her contract also stipulated that she would never work weekends and would be on holiday for all of August.
So despite receiving a star-journalist’s salary Emilia works for about four hours (5.30pm to 9.30pm) a day on weekdays only and for 10 months a year displays her over-paid journalistic skills on a mega-boring, one-hour interview show broadcast every Tuesday. This is the type of work contract you get when you enjoy presidential patronage.
When her contract expired, the big-spender, comrade Tof was in charge and his lap-dogs at the CyBC did not re-negotiate it, despite the cash problems, leaving it to run indefinitely. He had honoured the Kenevezou oath as well.
THE CURRENT board of the corporation, under pressure to make savings, decided to cut Emilia’s salary from €6,300 (it had been reduced by 10 per cent like all staff’s) to four grand and put the issue at the top of the board meeting agenda.
But when it came up, chairman Giorgos Tsalakos informed members that Prez Nik had requested no board decision be taken as Kenevezou’s salary would be reviewed at the presidential palace in his presence. It was such a sensitively important issue the prez could not trust the board to deal with it.
So certain was Emilia that Nice Nik’s intervention would keep her salary intact she bragged to colleagues that the board members would be put in their place and I am sure she was right.
EMILIA’S bro Kyriacos, a leading Dik’ead, has also been a big beneficiary of presidential patronage. On Nik’s election he was appointed education minister but alas he had to step down in February when Ethnarch Junior decided that DIKO would quit the government.
But the Nice Nik employment agency soon found an even better job for Kyriacos at the expense of the taxpayer. As Kyri had big debts, the job had to pay enough for him to repay his loans. He was therefore appointed our ambassador to Greece a few months ago. He had never worked as a diplomat in his life but the monthly salary of about eight grand was just right for his financial needs.
So if you are jobless and you can’t find work that pays enough to cover your monthly financial obligations, just call the palazzo and ask for the president who will be happy to help. It might be a good idea to tell the telephonist that your name is Kenevezos.
THE NICE NIK employment agency, which specialises in finding highly-paid jobs in the state sector for unemployables with few qualifications, had a big success in the last week. It found a very good post for Dik’ead Fotis Fotiou, who like our ambassador in Athens, had to step down as minister (of defence) when Junior quit the government.
Fotis, not the smartest kid on the block, was appointed presidential commissioner for expatriates and human rights issues. In this post his mess-up capacity is severely restricted, but he will still be collecting a cool 90 grand a year and be given a state limo. Government sources explained the reasons for appointing him thus – “he supported prez Nik consistently so why should he not be given a job as he has left DIKO”. I can think of about 100 reasons why not but I will not expand.
THEN there are the capable individuals who offer their services to the government without demanding payment and end up being targeted for abuse. You had to feel sorry for our Nobel prize winner Professor Pissarides, who was slammed by politicians and newspapers, for daring to say that not passing the foreclosures bill would cause problems to the country.
He was accused of scare-mongering on the instructions of Prez Nik, because in Kyproulla anyone who challenges the brainless majority is dishonest and lacking in integrity. The mild-mannered, gently-spoken Pissarides was shocked by the abuse and slurs on his character and felt the need to release a statement to defend his name.
He should not have taken offence or bothered to respond to lunatics. But it appears the professor is a sensitive soul who, like our president, just wants to be loved and feels hurt when he is not being showered with love and praise.
PUBLICITY-MAD Auditor-General Odysseas Michaelides, who will do anything to get into the papers, in his latest attention-seeking stunt has been demanding that the Central Bank governor rescind her decision to hire as her PA a woman that had left the bank on early retirement as it was ‘irregular’.
Michaelides issued his advice to Crystal after a meeting with the AKEL chief Andros who disapproved of the appointment and reported it to him. The nastiness and audacity of the Akelites knows no bounds.
When the commies appointed their puppet, professor Panicos, as governor they had forced the woman in question, who had served as PA to the two previous governors, to take early retirement because they wanted her out of the way. She was a very capable PA that managed the governor’s office impeccably, but she was not an Akelite and was replaced by party apparatchik Eleni Markadji, who ran the office as if she were the governor.
Now, for the sake of a bit of publicity, Michaelides is doing the dirty work of the scheming commies, making an issue out of nothing. Should Crystal have kept Markadji as her PA so she could report everything that went on at the bank to AKEL’s Central Committee?
SPEAKING of La Markadji, readers might be interested to know that she was paid the full €20,000 she had been claiming in overtime pay. Her overtime pay claim was signed by the professor just a day before he left. Her colleagues knew she was paid because she was bragging that she had filled her wardrobe with new designer outfits. Even the commies spend thousands on clothes when the taxpayer picks up the bill.
LAST WEEK our establishment wrote that Prez Nik, was no different from his predecessors in seeing a Cyprob solution as “a threat to his presidency that had to be avoided at all costs”. Despite his burning desire for re-unification, he is not in a big hurry, employing the same delaying tactics in the peace process as comrade Tof.
He has even borrowed the rhetoric of his predecessors. Speaking on Monday night, he sounded like another Tassos and a soul-mate of Lillikas, stressing that the solution the government was looking for was “a bizonal, bicommunal federation, workable and viable, that would re-unite the people, the country, institutions and the economy”.
Then he used a variation of the Tof theme in saying this solution must be the demand “of every Cypriot”, for “the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots, as well as every legal Cypriot, wherever he belongs, whatever language he speaks and whichever religion he follows.” Tof said the same thing but was more specific, referring to “all Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Armenians, Maronites and Latins.”
But nobody else had ever before mentioned the “legal Cypriot”, which must be a new species spawned by the Cyprob. Nik will now have to explain who the illegal Cypriots were and why they did not want a bizonal, bicommunal federation that was workable and viable like the rest of us?
AND IF additional confirmation were needed that Nik was behaving like the Ethnarch, he offered it on Tuesday when he threatened not to attend the dinner with Eroglu that was being hosted by the new UN special rep Espen Barth Eide. He was outraged because Ban Ki-moon had said that the two sides should enter the give-and-take stage of the negotiations. The UN had to issue a correction, to the effect that Ban did not know what he was talking about, for Nik to agree to attend the dinner.