Buried under crushing austerity measures imposed to offset a staggering debt largely caused by generations of political parties hiring hundreds of thousands of needless workers for the public payroll, Greeks can’t afford electricity, with unpaid bills growing at the rate of 4 million euros per day, it has been reported.
Public Power Corporation (PPC) officials told the newspaper Kathimerini that the problem is out of control and threatening the viability of the company’s operation and that it continues to mount as the government keeps pressing people with pay cuts, tax hikes, slashed pensions and worker firings while tax evaders continue to mostly escape paying.
Besides customers inability to pay, new regulations on the electricity market, the insistence of the country’s lenders for even higher electric rates for customers and problems with renewable energy sources have put high costs on PPC, further aggravating its financial difficulties.
“The picture we now have is far worse than we had anticipated regarding the collection of bill payments. The situation has been deteriorating since August and in the last two months the gap between bills issued and payments collected has reached 4 million euros per day,” a PPC official said.
PPC’s work load increased dramatically in 2011 as well when then finance minister Evangelos Venizelos, the PASOK Socialist chief who is now Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister in the coalition government of Prime Minister/New Democracy Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, effectively doubled property taxes but had them put in electric bills under the threat of having power turned off for non-payment.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
