Tag: economy

Work permits moratorium

In the last couple of years, the situation with work permits has been degrading rapidly.  Now, Cyprus News reports, it might get even worse:

LABOUR Minister Sotiroulla Charalambous yesterday proposed a moratorium on work permits for third country nationals employed in certain sectors in a bid to tackle unemployment among Cypriots and other EU citizens.

“It is a decision, which we view necessary under the current circumstances, with unemployment increasing and the availability of a satisfactory number of jobless capable local and community personnel to cover these needs,” Charalambous said after a meeting of the national employment committee.

The moratorium concerns bread production, confectioners, wholesale trade, printers, cheese makers, the dairy industry and other – unspecified — sectors of the economy.

I do understand and fully support the necessity to protect Cyprus citizens from unemployment.  However, what usually happens in practice is not the same thing.  In practice, those businesses that rely on foreign workers (native speakers, etc) or on workers with specific expertise, find themselves in the position of not being able to hire foreigners.  That, in turn, can’t be too good for the economy either.

What are they thinking?

Cyprus Mail reports that Cyprus Airways expands its operations in Greece:

“After the positive response from the Athens-Thessalonica-Athens route, the airline decided to start new regular flights to the country’s most important airports,” CY announced yesterday.

Starting on October 28, there will be twice-daily flights between Athens and Heraklion, one from Athens to Rhodes and back; one a day between Heraklion and Thessalonica and another between Rhodes and Thessalonica three times a week.

My first reaction after reading this is – what are they thinking?  Cyprus Airways has been in a lot of financial troubles lately, getting lots of help from the Cyprus government, including the kick out of the competition – Ryanair (here and here).  But at least Ryanair was working with Cyprus, bringing lots of people in and out.  What does Cyprus Airways do?  Yeah, right, instead of trying to help the Cyprus tourism a bit, they go to Greece.  Which, given Greece’s troubles, is questionable as well.  What’s the point of having Cyprus Airways in Cyprus at all then?  And why does the government spend the money on them.  Let them go to the other side of the world, if they want to, and help Australia’s tourism, or something…

Cyprus public transport is in trouble

It’s been only a couple of years since I blogged about Limassol joining the rest of the world with a rebirth of its public transportation system.  And now Cyprus Mail reports that it’s on the edge of being dead and over. Again.

PUBLIC transport is faced with collapse, a top MP has said, as lawmakers discussed a bill to inject an additional €21 million into the system to keep the upgrade programme going.

The House Finance Committee heard that bus companies were losing between €200,000 and €300,000 a month while banks were no longer willing to provide more breathing space.

Oh, well.  At least they tried.

But the procedure, Sir …

I just had the most retarded conversation with Hellenic Bank, which usually is quite understanding and cool, but in the last couple of month freaked me out a couple of times.  The situation is simple and complex at the same time.  I had a prepaid card (P-Card) on my name, connected to my account.  I gave it to my father so he could withdraw some money from the ATM in Russia.  This worked nicely quite a few times, until today there was a situation with a wrong PIN.  The bank in Russia was willing to sort it out, if only they could speak in Russian with some sort of bank representative.  So, I called the bank support line, and here is what transpired.

Support: Hello, sir, how can I help you?
Me: Hello.  I have a rather tricky situation and I need your help with it.  I have a prepaid card on my name, which I gave to my father to withdraw money.  He is in Russia currently, and he all of a sudden got an “invalid pin” error, even though it’s the same PIN that worked several times before.
Support: OK, can I have the card number please.
Me: Yes, sure, it’s 4173*********.
Support: Can I have your name please.
Me: Yes, sure, Leonid Mamchenkov.
Support: It was an incorrect PIN, sir.
Me: Yes, I know, the system said so.  But first of all, it wasn’t, and secondly, what can we do about it?
Support: Is your friend still holding a card?
Me: First of all, it’s not a friend. It’s my father. Secondly, no, it was taken by the ATM.  However the bank in Russia is willing to return the card if they can verify the identity of the holder and such.  Do you have any Russian-speaking support or branch or something?
Support: The policy is that the other bank does not have to return the card.  They will send it back to Hellenic Bank to get destroyed.
Me: I understand, however that would mean quite a huge delay in time for the transaction, not to mention an inconvenience.  Is there something we can do here?
Support: No, the policy says …
Me: Yes, I understand what the policy says.  But the situation seems solvable.  All you need to do is verify my identity and speak with the Russian bank, who will call some number of yours.  This way we can avoid a lot of …
Support: We cannot verify your identity, Sir.
Me: What do you mean?
Support: We cannot verify your identity, Sir.
Me: Listen, the prepaid card is connected to my account. It’s in my name. I’ve been a client of the bank for years now.  You can ask me any question in regards to that account, I will be able to answer – current balance, address, date of birth, the ID card number, anything.
Support: We cannot verify your identity, Sir.
Me: Can you please connect me to your supervisor then.
Support: I am the supervisor, Sir.
Me: And you cannot verify my identity?  You don’t have the procedure for that?
Support: No, Sir.  The procedure for this case is that the card is being destroyed.
Me: OK. Can I have the money from that prepaid card then?
Support: Sure. You can go to your branch and ask for the money.
Me: OK, thanks. Then I’ll do that tomorrow and will use Western Union or some other money transfer service.  And you can follow your procedure further on.  Well done. Good bye.
Support: Good bye, Sir.

Yeah, well.  And then we wonder what happened to the economy.  How freaking difficult is it to verify my identity and then speak to a bank in Russia.  And that’s when Russian IS one of the three language choices on the same support number that I just called, and not only – Hellenic Bank does have representation in Russia too.  I guess it’s just much simpler to say that we have a procedure that allows us not to give a crap about your problem.