A Co-op probe can’t really tell us the truth

It is comforting to know the government is going out on a limb for the good of Cypriot society to find out what could have possibly gone wrong at the liquidated Co-op.

Attorney General Costas Clerides was urged to appoint esteemed chaps or chapesses to map out the trail of incompetence and greed that brought about the Co-op’s downfall.

The President says we deserve to know the truth – as if that is any consolation to tax payers who have been carrying bankers on their backs since the rise and fall of the bailedout Cyprus economy.

Why the presumption there is a public clamour to know what happened at the Co-op, as if it was an Elmore James crime mystery that needed solving.

The Co-op was once a fiery dragon since put out of its misery – but the government wants to send in a team of experts to pick over the bones and tell us why it got so angry in its prime.

I don’t believe we need a financial forensic unit to deliver a verdict of malpractice, stupidity and negligence that will seemingly allow for a few token heads to roll.

We walked through the ruins of the financial meltdown in 2013, brought about by government indecision, casino bankers, gluttony and a lack of effective supervision that made the Wild West look like Switzerland.

Cyprus aspired to be a free-for-all money perpetuated by people looking the other way and a disregard for the boom-bust cycle. And is the government totally blameless? It has overseen the Co-op for the past five years but was unable to turn it around, pumping in billions before chopping it up and selling off the choice cuts to Hellenic Bank.

A big hoo-hah was made over the criminal probe into causes of the island’s economic collapse in 2013 – and how far down the road to enlightenment has that got us.

It certain didn’t lead to local jails brimming with convicted bankers or officials who sold Cyprus down the river getting their legal comeuppance.

Sending that financial probe to Mars would have reaped better results and taken less time to complete.

The government has suddenly grown a conscience to ask why the Co-op had EUR 300 mln negative value in 2013 while collecting bad loans like World Cup stickers that peaked at EUR 7.5 bln.

Now there will be an

investigation grab, total

into why the Co- operative Bank was buried under a mountain of bad debt, forcing the government to sell its assets to Hellenic Bank.

It will investigate how the bank’s non-performing loans amounted to 7.5 billion euros and the events that led to the government having to step in and inject 1.5 billion euros in 2014.

I think we can already guess how the island’s second largest bank was managed and the decisions that led to its takeover by smaller rival Hellenic.

The Co-op was a failed bank that betrayed its depositors and disregarded safe book-keeping – it gave people huge loans without collateral and then suggested they need not pay it back.

These are not the kind of terms that ordinary Cypriots have access to but the product of a society that wallows in cash-for-nothing nepotism, privilege and elitist cronyism.

Digging a little deeper it may be discovered that many of those non-performing loans belong to individuals or companies with political influence or connections.

The Co-op debacle is a product of a dysfunctional system that hasn’t been fixed, but rest assured this probe will put the world to rights.

And we must thank President Anastasiades for demanding that foreign experts be hired to expedite the process in full transparency before publishing a huge report at the end that nobody will bother to read.