Asking for advice, but not taking it

E DII TO RII A L

In its wisdom, the government has appointed a new advisory body, named the “Economy and Competitiveness Council” comprising an impressive team of economists and business leaders.

Its mandate is “to study the factors that affect economic development, the systematic monitoring of competitiveness and productivity of the economy and the proposal of targeted policy measures.”

This could be yet another ‘council’ or ‘advisory body’ that has been set up by government as a glorified talking shop.

Even the incumbent president, in his first term of office, had the ‘Economic Advisory Council’, set up in the aftermath of the financial crisis and banking meltdown in 2013, with the aim of helping get Cyprus back on its feet.

Unfortunately, the President himself did not take its advice or recommendations to heart.

As a result, the previous Council, headed by Nobel laureate Christoforos Pissarides, was allowed to die a slow death.

With this new council, who’s to say that President Anastasiades will actually listen to the members’ suggestions this time round?

Or is this another elaborate excuse to satisfy the egos of those who did not make it into the new Cabinet.

Incidentally, the Economy and Competitiveness Council seriously lacks in female participation, apart from the token presence of the chief economics researcher of the University of Cyprus – some might find this odd from a President who says he champions women’s rights.

The Council was announced in the same week that Cabinet approved the budgets of two other largeticket organisations – the gaming board and the Cyprus hydrocarbons company, both of which enjoy pay scales that make a mockery of the average earnings of hard working Cypriots.

The fact that the Anastasiades administration continues to be generous with salary hikes to public sector employees (whose productivity levels are shameful), and create jobs for the boys, defies the purpose of setting up a “productivity council” in the first place.

There are other organisations that have been tasked with ‘advising the president’ or ‘determining strategy’, but we never get to hear about that advice or strategy. It’s almost as if the economy is on automatic pilot with the Minister of Finance waking up each morning with his fingers crossed that government revenues will continue to stream in.

How else is he going to pay for a bloated civil service that will benefit from pay increases dating back from 2013. Ordinary workers were subject to drastic cuts of 40% and more while benefits and bonuses were lost for good.

So, what will the shiny Economy and Competitiveness Council do to rectify this imbalance, most probably compile a study that will be ignored – or will it be different this time?