A week for heroes and dictators.

CALL ME DUMB, but I really cannot understand why everyone has got their knickers in a twist about the prices of bread and milk. The most hysterical campaigner against the high prices of bread and milk has been the commerce minister Antonis Paschalides, who seems to have an unhealthy fixation with these products.

As if by reducing the price of a litre of milk by 10 cents it will make a difference to anyone's standard of living. Let's just think about what we would save if the price of milk was cheaper.

If we say that, on average, a four-member family uses a litre of milk every two days, it would buy 183 litres in a year, at the unacceptably high price of e1/41.30 per bottle. The total annual cost would be e1/4238. Now if the price of a litre was 10 cent lower a family would save a whole e1/419 and if it were 20 cent lower the saving would be e1/437.

How the standard of living of a family of four would improve by an extra e1/437 a year, only Paschalides could tell us. The amount would just about pay for the family to have souvlakia an extra time over 12 months.

The only families that would see a real benefit from Paschalides' noble campaign to reduce the price of milk are those which make their own halloumi at home.

THE ANNUAL saving from a lower bread price, meanwhile, could be as high as e1/440 a year. Of course when you add this to the e1/437 you will save from the cheaper milk you have additional disposable income of almost e1/480 per year.

Not enough to use as a down payment for a holiday home in Protaras, but if the amount is saved, in 10 years it could pay for a week's holiday in a cheap apartment in Protaras, assuming rents have not gone up. And the family will have the Minister of Milk and Bread to thank for their holiday.

Families that make their own halloumi would be the most grateful to Paschalides as they would be able to rent a holiday apartment in Protaras with only three years' savings, if they also bake their own bread.

WHAT A guy, Andreas Vgenopoulos is. Every time he visits us peasants he takes on a new role. The previous time he was here he played victim -- he was the poor, defenceless outsider who had been screwed by our sinister establishment.

This week he took on the role of anti-authority figure - a courageous campaigner for democracy and people-power, fighting against the fascist dictator in charge of the Central Bank, Athanasios Orphanides. He was a dictator, he declared at the House Institutions Committee, enjoying excessive powers and being accountable to nobody.

It was the dictatorial powers of one man - the Central Bank Governor - that Vgenopoulos, the super-democrat found unacceptable. If the decisions, preventing him buying and selling Marfin Popular shares in a closed period and increasing Marfin Investment Group's (MIG) shareholding in the bank were taken democratically he would have accepted them.

"If there is a procedure by individuals, who truly represent the people, and they take a decision I will respect it and will not leave, irrespective of what the decision is." So every time he goes to the Central Bank asking permission to do something with MPB shares, we will hold a referendum, so that the decision truly represents the people and he could respect it. Alternatively, we could vote for the dictator of the Central Bank, like we do for the President, and bankers could contribute funds to the election campaign of the candidate he thinks will exercise the least control over him.

VGEN never complained about the dictatorial powers of his good friend Ttooulis and he had even written to the government urging it to give him a second term as Governor when the term was nearing its end.

Was this because Ttooulis was accountable the people because he acted democratically, because he was handsome or because he cared for the poor and weak when he served as interior minister? Cynics would say it was because he did not turn down any of Vgen's requests when he was Governor, but I cannot believe this. The MIG chief wanted him to carry on regulating the banks because he was tough, but democratic.

Last Monday's House committee meeting looked suspiciously like a well-planned set-up, aimed at giving Vgen what he wanted -- a Governor with fewer powers - in order to keep Marfin Popular's HQ in Kyproulla. The political parties and the government were all pursuing this goal, with our wily friend Charilaos offering to save the day.

Adopting his favoured false modesty, Charilaos, at every opportunity, assured the meeting that the government respected the independence and the decisions of the dictator. However he eventually offered to co-ordinate a dialogue re-examining the regulatory framework of the Central Bank. This was Charilaos-speak, for limiting the powers and independence of the Governor, which the government so respected.

DEPUTIES did not need much convincing to embrace Charilaos' proposal. Now, parties, government and Vgen would all work together to reduce the powers of the Gov and if the dictator did not agree, a law could be passed bringing him under the control of our Stalinist state which abhors state officials being independent and refusing to take orders from the government.

So now we would have negotiations on how much the Gov could regulate the banks (true democracy at work) and if his powers were reduced adequately so that Vgen could pursue his business plans without any hindrances, he would keep Marfin's HQ in Kyproulla. The smart MIG chief, knowing what we are like, had no intention of waiting indefinitely for the conclusion of the 'dialogue', and so set a deadline.

When Charilaos said that the committee could meet again two or three months' time see how the dialogue was going, Vgen said: "We have the possibility to change our decision (to leave Kyproulla)" up to the end of September.

Not a single deputy had the guts to stand up and say that, while we do not mind being blackmailed, we never agree to operate under "suffocating time-frames".

THE CONSTANT use of the word 'dictator' by Vgen was too much to bear for the sensitive, bash-patriotic DIKO deputy Andreas Angelides, who stormed out of Monday's meeting in a huff. He later told hacks that he had asked Vgen to respect the House Committee and not use such a word to describe a state official.

He explained: "I do not consider personal attacks with such rude characterisations -- which have echoes of [the Greek Junta of] 1967 to be appropriate in the House, barely two days before the date of what the Greek dictatorship brought to Cyprus."

Angelides was obviously too upset emotionally to realize that Vgen was also opposed to dictators and his only concern was to bring more democracy to our banking system. There could even be the return to the governorship of Ttooulis, the bankers' choice.

ARCHBISHOP Chrys Two warned last Sunday that "the enemies of Cyprus are plotting vile situations", and told the faithful to reject a settlement of the Cyprob if it did not ensure that "even the last, the smallest refugee returned to his own house."

People got the message, but were left wondering who qualified as the smallest refugee. Did he mean the smallest in size (a refugee as tall as Spy Kyp) or the youngest of the tens of thousands who were born after '74, and inherited the refugee title from his father?

The other question he left unanswered was; what if there were refugees who did not want to return to the mud-hut of a house in the middle of the Mesaoria desert, which they used to live in before '74? Should we still reject the settlement or force all refugees - at gunpoint if needed - to return to their houses?

THIS IDIOTIC statement about the refugees was only reported on the CyBC television news. Tass news agency, from which the papers get their info did not mention it, even though it was the most interesting thing Chrys had said.

This must have been a case of the state news agency, exercising positive censorship, avoiding reporting Chrys' idiotic comments in order to safeguard the Archbishop's prestige. The Agency did the same a couple of weeks earlier when Chrys came up with following:

"I want to credit the President of the Republic with intelligence and with patriotism." This credit facility will most certainly be withdrawn if the smallest refugee is not allowed to return to his house.

BEING the period of the twin black anniversaries, it was inevitable that Paphites would be boasting about their brave resistance to the coup. Archbishop, Chrys, told us that "on the day of the coup I personally took up arms against the coupists."

Even braver, was Edek leader Yiannakis Omirou, who wrote his annual article to remind us that he was the man who announced on a pirate radio station in Paphos that Markarios was alive, on the day of the coup. According to Omirou, the "mass resistance to the coup" was owed to the "democratic traditions of the Paphos district."

The Union of Paphos Fighters, a paramilitary organisation which was armed, arrested Eoka B sympathisers, set up road-blocks and took control of National Guard camps, in the cradle of Kyproullan democracy. Omirou also informed us that Edek also had a "well-organised, armed wing" which joined the democratic resistance movement.

Needless to say that the armed groups of Paphos were perfectly legal -- they had been given the guns and ammunition by the government, wrote Omirou. The Makarios government knew that because of the district's democratic traditions, the Paphites would use their guns for exclusively good causes.

HAVING the same name and surname appears to have become a requirement for the post of Cyprus ambassador to Greece, one of the most sought-after diplomatic postings. According to press reports the job will go to Cyprus University professor Iosif Iosif, who last month stood as an AKEL candidate in the Euro-elections.

Iosif will replace Giorgos Giorgis, appointed by the late Ethnarch. Giorgis was also an academic, a resoundingly mediocre one, who had no experience of diplomacy. He was however, a very talented networker, who got the job on the recommendation of the late Ethnarch's other wife.

Giorgis was not always his surname. His surname was originally Kolokouthkias, which was pretty unique and makes his choice of Giorgis as a surname even more puzzling. Perhaps he felt that Kolokouthkias betrayed his peasant roots and restricted his scope for networking in our high society.

KOLOHOUTHKIAS' stint as ambassador has caused the foreign ministry a few problems. Apparently while serving as ambassador to Athens he made a habit of taking members of academia and of the Athens intelligentsia out to lunch and dinner, thus broadening his social circle. He grossly exceeded his entertainment budget as a result, forcing the foreign ministry to draft new regulations for ambassadors. According to the new regulations, ambassadors are no longer allowed to take out a single individual for lunch or dinner at the taxpayer's expense. This is all down to Koulourouthkias, who was using our money for his personal networking.

STAYING on diplomatic issues, we were overjoyed to read a Tass report, informing us that the King of Swaziland, Mswati III, would continue to support the just struggle of the Cypriot people for a fair and viable settlement of the Cyprob, based on UN resolutions and international law.

King Mswati, who was talking at the presentation of the credentials of our High Commissioner Argyros Antoniou, did not mention the suffocating time-frames. Antoniou also met Swaziland's foreign minister, Lutfo Dlamini whom he briefed about the "most recent developments in the Cyprus problem".

OUR COMMIES are not the most forgiving people of Kyproulla, which was why AKEL's two new MEPs did not vote for the former Polish prime minister, Jerzy Buzek, who was still elected President of the European Parliament on Monday

As Haravghi explained, Buzek was "a co-founder of Solidarity which, with funding by the CIA and the Vatican, brought about the overthrow of socialism and set in motion the plundering of the people by the new oligarchy and the abolition of all social benefits provided by socialism." And to add insult to injury, under his leadership, Poland joined NATO "which spreads democracy by murdering it."

We would like to conclude with a slogan, which we hope Antonis Paschalides could use in his campaign to lower the price of milk and bread. 'Make poverty history, cheaper milk and bread now.'

Copyright Cyprus Mail 2009

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