Cyprus Editorial: Who is Paschalides afraid of?

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We challenge Trade Minister Antonis Paschalides to reveal the name of the establishment that charged 6 euros for a soft drink, a statement he must have made under pressure from TV reporters, but stopped short of naming and shaming the profiteer.
Once again, the Minister made a trail-blazing declaration that the government would sue the alleged offender, but only after it would investigate whether the Cyprus Tourism Organisation was aware of the establishment’s price list, a procedure all operators of restaurants and hotels must abide by.
If the Minister made the statement in haste, he should question the motives of those feeding him misleading information, either from within his own ministry or from the CTO. If, on the other hand, there truly is such a profiteering establishment, then what is keeping Mr Paschalides from living up to his reputation as defender of the duped consumer and impoverished citizen?
It’s about time that officials at the Ministry and the CTO took their jobs more seriously. There seems to be good will at management level, but no will to implement the law at operational level.
Such cases of daylight robbery give Cyprus a bad name and the Minister should have the courage to “name and shame” anyone who is seen ripping off customers. Worse still, there are many others who are tolerant of such culprits, namely health and price inspectors, or even local council officials. Will the Minister dare name these accessories to the crime as well?
This begs the question if the Minister’s tactic was just part of the Akel-run administration’s efforts to maintain public support through populist declarations, as was the case of the party blaming the opposition for Qatari sheiks and funds walking away from investing in Cyprus, if this could ever be believed.
There are a hundred ways of action to get the Qataris on board, rather than the chosen method of inaction and blaming everyone else for anything that goes wrong.
Let’s start with the simplest one and get the Minister to say who charged 6 euros for soft drink…