The attempt to ensure a permanent from a contract staff status for Anastasiades’ advisors is a provocation for thousands of working people

 

 

13 May 2023, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

The Labour Disputes Court yesterday annulled the attempt by the majority of the House of Representatives to put an end to the Anastasiades government’s provocative insistence on ensuring that the four contract advisors of Nicos Anastasiades be granted permanent status in the civil service by the back door.

In other words, the three paid full-time officials of DISY and Nicos Anastasiades’ niece who were hired at the Presidential Palace during the DISY administration will now remain on a permanent status in the Civil Service, thanks to the previous government’s tricks and scheming.

This is a unique case in the annals of the state. Persons who were hired through a government political appointment – that is, without any examinations and without a vacancy notice – with the categorical condition that their service would be terminated at the end of the government’s term of office, were eventually converted to an open-ended permanent contract and will be paid by the State until their retirement, i.e. for the next 10, 20 or even 30 years.

The fact that other advisors of the Anastasiades government are also asserting their tenure in the Courts confirms that this method used by the previous government is opening the door for this outrageous practice to expand.

What is even more provocative is the fact that while this applies for DISY select cronies, the state stubbornly refuses at the same time to recognise thousands of working people employed in purchase of services schemes as salaried workers.