How to respond to scandals: free advice for Cypriots!

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who stormed the world with the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers among others, say that they will publish a "groundbreaking investigation into Cyprus' financial secrets" today, 14 November 2023.

Over the years I feel that the responses from the professional community have left a lot to be desired, and have only made Cyprus' international reputation worse.

So yesterday on Twitter/X I gave some advice on how to respond, which I am pasting below. You can also find it on Threadreaderapp here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1723996878344245425.html or on Twitter here: https://x.com/FionaMullenCY/status/1723996878344245425?s=20.

Let's get the response right this time!

Dear Cypriots, ahead of whatever this reveals (no I am not privy to it) a few words of advice from a pesky foreigner on how your reactions will be perceived. Thread. 1/ #Cyprus #ICIJ

If you say “foreigners are doing this so they can steal our business”, it will only make you look more guilty. 2/

If you say “this is nothing new” (have seen some of that already), remember the rest of the world doesn’t read Greek, so it will only make it look like you don’t care about corruption. 3/

If you say “evil Turkish/American/British plot” it will only make you look more guilty. 4/

If you say “liars we’ll sue!” by all means sue if you have a case. But do it quietly. Shouting it makes you look more guilty. So what should one do? 5/

Let’s take it as given that we all want the best for Cyprus. We want Cyprus’ international reputation for probity to improve. 6/

We want big pension and other investment funds to invest here, not go “OMG Cyprus too risky, not touching it” which I understand can happen. 7/

This means that the only response that will be taken seriously by the internationals is: “we take this matter which is alleged to have taken place in year X extremely seriously, we have launched an immediate investigation, no one is above the law.” 8/

Then importantly for the domestic audience the message needs to be: to be patriotic is to be squeaky clean + be seen to be clean. It’s not just good for business, it helps our national security coz we won’t get accusations thrown when we need big countries’ help (eg 2013). 9/9

PS The alternative is to be beholden to those small number of people who keep dragging Cyprus’ reputation through the mud every few years. They are loaded with ??. You are not. Why stand it any longer?

PPS since this thread has received some attention, I’ll end with a SHAMELESS PLUG! You want a truly independent non-executive director with no political/govt ties, no Cypriot shares/bonds, who’s a registered holder of Advanced CySEC exam? Look no further?? https://www.cysec.gov.cy/en-GB/public-info/certifications-and-seminars/certifications/certification-registers/public-register/

#Cyprus #ICIJ #AML