Members of the ruling coalition are living with the dream that as the state finances seem to be at healthy levels, they should dish out grants by the bucket-load in time for the next presidential elections less than a year from now, regardless if the state coffers can withstand any more pressure.
What the coalition partners have not realized is that Finance Minister Michalis Sarris doesn’t want to go down in the history books as the guy who brought the state to the verge of bankruptcy. He has introduced a sound economic policy of stability based on steady growth, while keeping the public sector expenses in check.
He has kept his cool, despite the raving and ranting of certain politicians, and prefers avoiding confrontation with anybody, unlike many of his colleagues.
President Papadopoulos declared this week that he would hike pensions for the civil service, but he did not say at what cost.
Issues such as 14th salaries, which will primarily benefit the over-paid civil servants, and the over-ambitious CYP 20,000 bonus for a third child in order to curb the receding birth rate, were policies that were declared in haste in order to win public opinion, either by the ministers or those pulling their strings.
Such rash declarations have already had a negative reaction with a worrying number of expectant mothers terminating their pregnancies until the bonus package is passed through.
According to the Finance Minister, these benefits will not see the light of day, at least not until other issues of grave importance have been resolved, the primary being that of the poor state of the Social Insurance Fund.
With payments overtaking contributions, the Fund has been on the verge of bankruptcy for some time now and radical measures are needed to revive the fund to ensure that future generations will receive a pension. But such stop-gap measures and declarations will do nothing as five years from now the problem will have exacerbated unless major issues are addressed, such as the balancing of civil servant/private sector employee contributions, the discrimination that allows civil servants to draw six months’ worth of unemployment benefit is abolished, and employment of new civil servants is put on hold for the next decade.
These are issues that would ensure the prosperity of future generations, but as sure as hell they will not win any elections.
