Cyprus Editorial: Doesn’t he ever give up?

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Just when we thought that the banking crisis issue had calmed down and that we were all turning a new leaf, looking forward to the next steps that need to be taken to save the economy, President Christofias decided to rekindle the attack on the banking sector, western capitalism and, of course, his pet hate, the former Central Bank governor.
His comments were on the wrong track and not well planned, probably on the behest of some of his ill-informed advisors.
Attacking the western capitalist system will not earn him any points with Francois Hollande, and surely not with Angela Merkel, the EU’s paymaster. On the contrary, Cyprus will once again be mocked for not being serious at a time when we are desperately trying to preserve our image as an international financial service centre. The only person that was probably delighted by these comments was the swashbuckling Alexis Tsipras of the leftist rejectionist party in Greece.
Then again, at a time when we need to reinstate confidence in the Cyprus banking sector, with the hope that shareholders (include stockholders from among the Akel ranks) will some day see their share values and hopefully dividends rise again, restarting the blame-game and saying that the banks were at fault for everything was simply counterproductive.
We all agree that a proper investigation needs to take place to see who is to blame for the decision to buy the rotten Greek government bonds at a time when all else were selling down their portfolios. At the same time, we should also look at the lack of substantial austerity measures that do not seem to have dented the colossal public sector payroll in any way and have caused our public sector deficit to remain high, part of the reason why, together with the absence of reforms, we have been downgraded and subsequently shut out of markets.
Perhaps the President, too, should take some of his own medicine and say less on the matter, just as has been the case recently over oil and gas exploration.