‘Don’t throw baby out with the bathwater’

With 75 days into Nikos Christodoulides’ administration, the ethical issues of appointments seem to be piling up. And this is not exclusive to the incumbent government.

After the miscalculated selection of an unqualified appointment to the Public Service Commission, the powerful body that oversees all hirings and promotions in the civil service, another problem arose with the no-merit hiring of a teenage student to handle the entire social media universe of the tourism junior ministry.

Administration officials have said that no law was violated in this appointment, as the regulations that determine any contractor must be at least 21 and a university graduate, were rescinded in 2019 by the cabinet, of which the president was a sitting member.

This is nothing more than spitting in the face of professional marketeers and social media experts, who are often sidelined because of a lack of party or government affiliations.

Furthermore, another issue seems to have arisen from the recruitment of four contractors by the previous administration in 2013, whose terms should have ended in 2018.

However, for some strange reason, these were renewed and now appear as permanent civil servants, burdening taxpayers even more, according to the Auditor General, who says these appointments were illegal.

So, the same Anastasiades administration that made such a fuss in 2013 to provide unemployed graduates with measly-paid jobs, had already planned to keep the good jobs and high-paying ones for its own people, regardless of qualifications.

The same model is now being adopted by this three month old government, who chief executive said that he would not allow his cabinet members any grace period and that they would be subject to public criticism.

At least this president doesn’t seem to be involved in selling millions worth of passports and abusing regulations and public contracts to favour friends.

Or does he?