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It is ironic that the blame-game wonderfully mastered by all Cypriot politicians never applies to themselves.
This could not be truer than in the case of the ‘demands’ continuing this week that the Finance Minister should resign over the collapse of the Co-operative bank and all the trimmings that came with it.
These are the same politicians who have systematically abused the Co-op in order to secure jobs for relatives and friends, while some even enjoyed benefits from doing business with the savings institution in their capacity as lawyers, accounts or any other consultants, even deputies and election hopefuls.
Add to this the political parties that have used every form of influence to strike off debts piled up at the local or national Co-op bank over the years, while publicly elected officials were reported to have also secured a write-off of business loans, otherwise considered “non performing”, which explains why some were so fervent in not letting the bank go.
Rest assured that many are secretly happy because now that the commission investigating the collapse of the bank has concluded its probe, they are hopeful that another embarrassing episode will be swept under the carpet and forgotten into eternity.
But considering the damning revelation during a panel discussion of economists this week that our slow judicial system and the long delays in getting justice ranks Cyprus among “third world” African and Asian nations, some of which renowned for mastering corruption and hosts to crooks and terrorists, then the ostrich-head-in-the-sand mentality seems to prevail.
Has anyone ever gone to jail in Cyprus, apart from a handful in the past decade, embroiled in blatantly obvious dodgy cases? No politician’s immunity has been lifted, in order to be tried, while no one dares say “mea culpa” with the hope that they will be forgiven, and that life will go on.
There’s no need to list the scandals where justice should have been served, apart from the token jail term imposed on a hand-picked “victim”.
It is for this very same reason that mid-level managers at Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, guarded by their trade unions, were never tried for selling unsecured bonds and other products to unwitting (yet admittedly greedy) customers.
New CEOs took charge of all banks and chose not to prosecute their own staff to protect those higher up who gave the nod from taking the fall.
The same applies to Cyprus Airways, Eurocypria, outsourced state assets (ports, airports, etc.) where everybody seems to have had a finger in the cookie jar.
As regards this weeks demo by moaning Co-op customers, the reason was simple – give back to the communities some of the assets where branches existed in villages, to which the government decided to change tactic and say, “I’ll think about it,” in which case no scandal here. Is there?
