The ancient Greeks believed that the best could always be made of a bad situation, and the idea seems to apply to the country today. The serious economic crisis that Greece is experiencing has already had some positive results, not least in terms of the fight against corruption. In the last few months, a series of scandals have continued to emerge and helped explain the tragic economic situation in which the country finds itself, no thanks to corrupt politicians and union figures.
After the scandals regarding social benefits, which saw the supposedly “visually impaired” driving taxis, or children of deceased pensioners continuing to receive funds from their “late relative,” the spotlight has now fallen on the DEI, the Greek company for electrical energy production. A report by the Greek Customs Police (SDOE) published in Ethnos newspaper reveals that a number of senior officials at GENOP-DEI, the trade union for company employees, have received millions of euros in repayments over the years for luxury trips or visits abroad that they never actually made, expenses for trips by colleagues from other countries who never travelled to Greece, or consultancy entrusted to friends and relatives who never provided assistance.
In the three-year period between 2008 and 2010 alone, the union body and the organization for social activities for workers at the DEI (OKDE) spent more than 800,000 euros (885,497) and presented bills for 1,194,497 euros. The report also mentions “failed checks” by the company over the expenses paid out. Between 2005 and 2006, some five million euros were spent on social tourism programs without the appropriate receipts being attached and without a reason being given for the journeys or the activities carried out during the trips.
The scandal began exactly a year ago, in April 2011, when the general inspector for Greece’s Public Administration body, Leandros Rakintzis, asked for intervention by the SDOE after discovering, during a control of subsidy for the DEI trade union and for the OKDE, that certain companies had issued excessively high bills for services provided to both GENOP-DEI and OKDE. Rakintzis says that the SDOE report shows “great squandering of public money with a system of over-calculation of bills,” which are above all illegal, as the law forbids entrepreneurs from subsidising union organizations.
Union figures from GENOP-DEI, meanwhile, have rejected the accusations and have spoken of a “plot by some entrepreneurs who want to sling mud” at them, while the union’s president has demanded the opening of the bank accounts of all of the company’s union figures, saying that he would be prepared not to resign, but to kill himself if so much as one euro out of place were found.
In the meantime, though, some analysts have noted union figures in the firing line of the Customs Police have yet to explain the reasons for their luxury trips, the hosting of foreign colleagues and the organization of social events with money belonging to the company, which happens to be listed on the Stock Exchange and in serious debt.
GENOP-DEI has been heavily criticized by PAME, the trade union close to Greece’s Communist Party (KKE), which has confirmed that the DEI trade union was financed by the company. “PAME was against the creation of the OKDE and complained of its creation at the time,” the trade union said in a statement. PAME says that GENOP-DEI was receiving financing from the electricity company because the majority of its union figures would systematically support the implementation of DEI policies that went against the interests of workers.
(source: ANSA)
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