Our View: Government’s crisis management is hopeless  

Disy chief and president of the House, Annita Demetriou, called for the resignation/sacking of Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou for her inadequate handling of the outbreak of the foot and mouth disease. At a specially called news conference on Wednesday, Demetriou lambasted the slapdash approach of the government to a problem it had ignored, despite being aware of its existence in the north since before Christmas.

There was no policy, said Demetriou, pointing out the “contradictory positions taken by the government, the ministry and state services”. She stressed that “we cannot see the livestock farming sector being destroyed and expect, because of assurances of the president, that the protocols will change, the minister assuring the legislature that asymptomatic animals will not be put down and the same evening an order being issued for the culling all animals.” This was “shameful”, and “a monument of failure and irresponsibility towards livestock farmers and the economy”.

The House president rarely resorts to such strongly worded outbursts, but she must think it is merited, given the gross ineptitude displayed by the government, which did absolutely nothing in preparation for an outbreak of the disease until it was too late to manage the situation. It had two months to prepare, by securing supplies of vaccines, carrying out regular inspections of farms in the Larnaca district that were only a few miles away from the farms with FMD in the north, and properly briefing farmers.

It took action, only after animals were infected at 11 farming units, losing control of the situation. At the last count, 38 units were affected, and more than 13,000 animals were to be culled. Of course, many livestock farmers facing financial ruin are demanding that the EU protocols, which stipulate that all livestock in an infected farm is culled, are ignored.

President Nikos Christodoulides raised the hopes of the farmers at a meeting last Sunday, when he told their representatives that he would ask the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for derogation, because Cyprus is a small island, farms are close to each other and there was a different policy in the occupied area (vaccinations and no cullings). On Tuesday, at the House agriculture committee, Panayiotou and ministry bureaucrats insisted that there had to be compliance.

The government is still raising expectations among the farmers. On Wednesday it announced that the Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare, Oliver Varhelyi, would be visiting Cyprus on Friday for meetings with all stakeholders. He will probably tell them that EU law and protocols must be respected. It is indicative of the government’s general ineptitude that famers are now depending on the Commission doing Christodoulides a personal favour.

This government has proved time and again that it cannot deal with difficult problems. Even if Demetriou’s calls are heard and Panayiotou is axed it will make no difference – the government’s crisis management would still be hopeless.