Cyprus Editorial: Low ethics and high horses

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All the political parties have now jumped on the “sack the minister” bandwagon, blaming Marios Demetriades for the mess at Limassol port and lecturing the general public about the high standards of ethics they have been abiding by all these years.


 
This follows the gaffe after gaffe that we have witnessed at Limassol port, where the operators, DP World of Dubai and EuroGate, failed to communicate properly with the contractors and users, causing unnecessary harm to the market and resulting in a shortage of goods and raw materials. Needless to say that containers are full of rotting produce, while exporters are frustrated, to say the least, from the ensuing chaos.
We have said before that blame should go where it is due and if the companies are responsible for not making the necessary arrangements and transition during the past nine months, then they should be penalised, either by rescinding their management licenses or by hefty fines, which the minister has already said he will impose.
Furthermore, offering a daily compensation to truck drivers just shows how shoddy the management of the port must be. Or is it?
Everyone is quick to blame the minister for the mess, even telling him to resign. But the question is, who is truly responsible? Is it Demetriades or his high ranking civil servants who are simply conveying an incomplete picture? Is it the Ports Authority, that has been allegedly practicing its own “sweeping under the carpet” operation, to try and suppress any evidence of its own incompetence? Or is it the staff and crews that the new operators inherited from the Ports Authority, many of whom still work with a civil service mentality.
For sure, none of the political parties would dare challenge any civil servant for fear of losing precious votes, especially as we are less then 12 months away from the presidential polls.
If the minister is confident that he has done nothing wrong, perhaps he should also come out and say who is truly to blame for the mess and tell us how he plans to resolve the situation to make sure this episode is not repeated in the future.
Perhaps then the politicians will step down from their high moral ground and see for a change who is to blame for every mess in this country.