Everything in the Greek Finance Ministry, located at the very heart of Athens, in Syntagma Square, Greece , seems to have stopped ahead of the elections, putting at risk anything (major or minor) that has been achieved during the previous years. Even the General Secretariat of Public Revenue, whichshould continue her work as normal, is following previous years’ practices by simply issuing circulars that do not “hurt” the government.
This development puts the state of revenues under question and every indication reveals that the Troika negotiations will return under much worse conditions for the new government and the new Finance Minister. The instructions of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras during the last cabinet council, regarding the non-stop continuation of the State’s functions, remained in words and any attempts to uplift revenue are left upon the pride of some public sector employees.
There is no business plan for 2015 as of yet and this indicates that the Secretary General of Public Revenue, Katerina Savvaidou, is only waiting to deliver her duties to her successor. Finance Ministry officials estimate that the revenue deviations will exceed one billion euros and such a development can only be characterized as a particularly negative one, as the Troika already calls for new measures.
Perhaps the government and the current Finance Minister should be more concerned for taxpayers, who over the years pay from their savings, and set the state’s audit and revenue mechanisms back to work. Because in any other case, the new measures that will soon be imposed over the country, will once again be paid by the Greek people, the support of which the two major parties (New Democracy and SYRIZA) are competing for ahead of the so-called “critical” January 25 general elections.
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