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Three separate events this week drove home the message that cooperation is needed at all levels, public and private if Cyprus is to rightfully claim its place as a market leader in services, policy and world trade.
The first was a unique brainstorming event for managers in Limassol, organised by the same people who have consecutively hosted successful events and training for shipping professionals.
The second was a briefing at the Foreign Ministry to a group of diplomats and art historians, who concluded that education, technology and most of all, methodology, are necessary to help protect cultural heritage, which in effect determines national identity.
A third event was none other than the annual meeting of the Cyprus Shipping Chamber, the low-key group of shipowners and shipping professionals who have driven the country’s maritime policy for more than three decades.
The common denominator in all three events is that greater collaboration is imperative in all sectors of the economy and the state, the latter being the laggard in communications between its own departments, let alone with the wider society.
To this day, there are people who head government departments who continue to suffer from territorial issues and some sort of inferiority/superiority syndrome, where egos have often trumped national interest and incompetence have resulted in damaging outcomes for the nation.
Recent prime examples are the total breakdown of communications between the ministries in charge of trade, farming and foreign affairs which saw the halloumi brand, trademark and description nearly slip out of our hands.
Its future hanging from a thread, and, naturally, instead of identifying the culprit in order to fix the problem and move on (as we cannot sack civil servants for such menial issues as halloumi), officials continue to blame everyone else.
This NIMBY culture (not in my back yard) must end, but in order for a new order and fresh attitudes to take charge, it must start from leadership showing the way.
In the past six years, the present “pro-business” presidency, that continues to give-in to civil service strong-arm tactics, has suffered irreparably from perceptions of corruption, with the ruling party itself very often undermining the work of the administration, instead of openly defending it and helping to guide the government through troubled waters.
Fortunately, in the case of shipping, it is the industry itself that quietly determines policies, that the government adopts, because here, national interest has been put very high on the pedestal, far above private or corporate interests, that should be the example to be followed by all other sectors, primarily the tourism industry.
If we don’t join the dots, we will never have a common strategy on anything. Simply trashing everyone else (including all incumbents who have demolished the work of all predecessor administrations in the past few decades) does not help create something new.
Criticism has never solved any problem. To do that, we all need to work together, for a change.
