Greece might lose funds that have been allocated for tackling corruption, said Drago Kos, international commissioner in the independent Monitoring and Evaluation Committee.
According to a Kathimerini daily report, Kos spoke in a conference on Corporate Responsibility in the International Legal Environment. Speaking on corporate accountability and corruption, he referred to the position of Greece on the issue of corruption in the private and public sector.
“In my suggestions to Greece to increase the resources to fight corruption, I did not know this: that there are 168 million dollars (of which 12 million dollars are earmarked for Greece) allocated to the fight against corruption since 2012.”
As Kos explained, German corporation Siemens was forced to pay exorbitant fines after a global bribery scandal. “If you do not start using that money until 2017, you will lose it. Imagine what you can do with so much money,” the commissioner said.
The funds are part of a wider compromise agreement between Greece and the German company. The money have not been disbursed because of negligence of the pertinent committee of the Finance Ministry. Furthermore, the position of the current government is that it does not accept the compromise agreement with Siemens.
The commissioner also referred to a 2014 OECD report on Greece, according to which the sectors that were more exposed to bribery and corruption are construction, mining and information technology, but mainly the bribery recipients are public servants, customs officers and executives or employees in the health care sector. He added finally, that Greece is not in a bad position in the OECD rankings, when you consider that of the 41 member states, there are 20 that do almost nothing to fight corruption.
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