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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
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‘Christofias is to blame for crisis’ DIKO’s Papadopoulos charges that previous government took no responsibility for its lack of measures By Poly Pantelides
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HE HEAD of parliament’s finance committee told an ongoing inquiry into the country’s near-financial collapse that former President Demetris Christofias was primarily to blame for the country’s botched bailout. “One of the biggest mistakes of the previous government was that it would not assume the political cost for taking measures,” Nicolas Papadopoulos told the Committee of Inquiry. Papadopoulos, chair of the House finance committee since 2011, accused the previous government of delays in taking austerity measures, partly because they were misled by the preceeding years of solid growth, he said. Despite warnings, Christofias did not allow his finance ministers to take any substantial action to contain spending, making it clear he was not politically willing to condone austerity measures, Papadopoulos said. “Christofias kept reacting against all efforts to implement (austerity) measures,” Papadopoulos said, adding that his government kept misjudging the situation, pushing through tax measures that squeezed the economy rather than helping things, he added. “Unfortunately my (July 2011) statement that (the Christofias government) would make a bigger mess than Greece and wreck the banking system was vindi-
cated.” He was referring to the terms of Cyprus’ €10 billion international bailout, leading to the island’s second biggest bank’s resolution and the restructuring of its biggest. With hindsight, when Cyprus became excluded from international markets in May 2011 it should have asked for an EU bailout, not for a Russian loan, Papadopoulos said referring to the €2.5 billion Cyprus got from the Russian Federation that year as a stopgap. But Papadopoulos conceded the house finance committee did not understand the consequences of a decision to write-down Greek government bonds in the summer of 2011, which eventually left Cyprus’ banks exposed to the tune of billions. He said that former central bank governor Athanasios Orphanides did become concerned when it later transpired – in February 2012 – that the Greek haircut would be bigger than originally thought. Orphanides informed the committee that he would try to speak to Christofias about the situation, with no success, Papadopoulos said. He nonetheless said that despite the banks’ overexposure to Greek debt, the political leadership dropped the ball, making mistakes on a national and European level. Following Cyprus’ exclusion from international markets, Cyprus’ downgrades from credit rating agencies
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Briton in Everest triple-peak triumph
Branches of Laiki across the island are being rebranded as Bank of Cyprus. This bank in Nicosia’s Eleftheria Square was yesterday temporarily branded as both (Christos Theodorides)
Sale of Greek banks ‘could cost BoC millions’ Page 5 EU draft rescue law wouldn’t shield big deposits Page 4
BRITAIN’S most successful mountaineer has become the first person to scale the three peaks of Mount Everest’s Western Cwm in one climb. Kenton Cool, 39, and his climbing partner Sherpa Dorje Gylgen returned to Everest base camp yesterday morning after reaching the summits of Nuptse, Everest and Lhotse in a single trip. Cool said after completing the unprecedented Three Peaks Challenge: “It has always been a dream of mine to attempt these three mountains. “It’s been a pretty full-on week. I’ve never been this tired. I’m totally 100 per cent spent, but it’s an absolutely fantastic feeling to have achieved this - a dream come true.” Cool, from Gloucestershire, and Dorje summitted Lhotse yesterday, but only considered the perilous climb to be over once they had reached base camp safely. At 7,861m (25,791ft), Nuptse is the world’s 20th highest peak, at 8,848m (29,029ft) Everest is the highest, and Lhotse is the fourth highest at 8,516m (27,940ft). The explorer left base camp last Thursday morning and arrived at the summit of Nuptse on Saturday, before reaching the peak of the world’s highest mountain on Sunday. His successful assault on Everest was the 11th time he had reached the top of the world. The achievement comes ahead of the 60th anniversary of the first conquest of Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953.