The IMF is worried about issues related to our mentality. A mentality that unfolds in front of us with boldness and is tolerated by our deafening silence
OR Report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Cyprus is good. We would say very good. There is money to pay our debts and there is a good security pillow to keep us “alive” when (no matter if) the Cypriot economy is once in a recession. But that, however, is the bar (and ceiling) of the previous decade. The IMF is worried about issues related to our mentality. A mentality that unfolds in front of us with boldness and tolerated by our deafening silence. Public Service payroll, projects of energy infrastructure we pay, we sometimes duplicate and do not implement, but also the hierarchy we often do with expenditure.
A more striking example is the solidarity fund for tired depositors and securities, perhaps the old shareholders. Injustice haircut and no question. But the fund set up in social terms, that is, to support the most vulnerable of the citizens who lost their deposits and their counterparts. Low -pensioners who had, however, gathered a joke for a time of emergency, orphans that the property they received from their parents became deposited or secured and certainly not our wealthy compatriots who had the misfortune (or greed) to buy financial products.
“I will not tell you what to do with the taxpayer’s money, but you may need to think that there is needs for education or health,” IMF head of the IMF in Cyprus, Alex Pienkowski, told Nicosia. Especially in education, the situation is heartbreaking and not just in Cyprus. But if the biggest asset we have is human resources, then we go for bankruptcy. “I am a teacher and I had no problem working for more hours but in better conditions and not in classes with 25 people” was the message of a listener on the “Show me the money” radio show on “P” 107.6. Yes, but the problem is that the money will not go to education, neither for an air conditioner, nor for smaller classes. Parents’ money will go to tutorials and state money without criteria to tired depositors and securities holders. They will go for the ATA.
It became ATA, the castle of the popular resistance even if those who really benefit are the high wages. In the low -wage receipt and the low -income pensioners reach as a tip, while in the high wages good increase in earnings. In the majority of private employees who do not receive ATA, it only reaches the prices of consumption of the most “privileged” and thus increases inequality. The IMF sees this, it also sees that these costs could go on growth and that if the revenue is reduced, the state will have to save from elsewhere to continue paying it. We don’t want to see it.
As we do not want to see that the processes we have for the implementation of public works have failed. The IMF is worried because the final costs in the projects is greater than what it was calculated and that many of them are not implemented. Especially those that have to do with energy.
“Cyprus must plan on the basis of the big picture, and must be united with the mainland for safety and green energy reasons,” Mr Pienkowski told us at a press conference. Well all this, but nothing is going to happen if we don’t get serious. Energy infrastructure and investment are not on geopolitical criteria that must be considered but with environmental and economic. If we start to see them with this lens, we may be able to change our mindset and everything else.