WHEN the legislature approved the law making the appointment of the boards of semi-governmental organisations (SGO) coincide with the presidential term, the president sent it back, refusing to ratify it. The change in the law, reducing the term of a board from 36 to 30 months and barring directors from serving more than two terms, was deemed unconstitutional by the president for reasons that remain unclear.
The real issue was that President Christofias did not want the people he appointed to the boards now, to step down in March when a new president takes over and, by virtue of the new law, would be able to appoint new boards. He wants to keep his appointees in place for the full three years, more than two of which would be under another president. DISY, which drafted the law, claimed that appointments of directors should be made when a new president is elected as SGOs implement government policy.
The row has nothing to do with the constitution or more efficient policy-making, but is all about control. Parties want control of SGOs so they can engage in nepotism, promoting and appointing their people. This has been the case for as long as CyTA, EAC, Ports Authority, CyBC etc have existed and is the reason they are ridiculously overstaffed and their workers grossly overpaid. The average cost per worker at these organisations is in excess of €40,000 a year, while for the CyBC it is close to €70,000. All parties want to offer appointments at these organisations, which are decided by the boards, to loyal supporters.
When George Vassiliou was president he distributed the seats on the SGO boards among all the parties, which took turns to promote and appoint their own. This may have seemed superficially fair – it prevented parties from bickering – but it made a mockery of meritocracy and ensured most SGOs were badly-run, inefficient and crippled by high labour costs as unions were always satisfied.
Needless to say, the proposal for the privatisation of SGOs by the troika was slammed by all the political parties, none of which is willing to give up these dens of party nepotism. Yesterday, the day after the government’s new appointments to the SGO boards were announced, all the political parties were hypocritically accusing the government of nepotism. This was not because they were opposed to nepotism, but because they were not allowed to practise it as well.
We hope the troika will insist on the privatisation of the SGOs because it is the only way to put an end to the party-sponsored nepotism that all the parties protest about when they are not allowed to practise it.