Former Minister Sotiris Hadzigakis was attacked by the Deputy Minister of Agrarian Development Michalis Karhimakis, who presented documents and accused the former Ministry of New Democracy of signing kinship labour contracts with the state-owned company AGROGI. The charges are that the management of the Ministry spent huge amounts for repairs of offices, for the payment of incredible bills of fixed and mobile phone calls, and even for the hot pink lines 090 ...
And while Mr. Hadzigakis tried to justify what happened without any arguments, Mr. Karhimakis presented documents with concrete evidence. “The repair of the Office of the Deputy Minister which is only 25-30 square meters is worth € 150,000! Only the furnishing amounted to € 71,000!” Expensive hobby is the hanging on the phone as shown by the bills of the Ministry. “The Ministry used 70 mobile phones. The fixed phones bill of the Ministry was € 20 million. There are even calls from the ministry to the pink lines and TV games!”
Particularly striking for New Democracy is the case of illegal signing of contracts for employment in the state-owned AGROGI that was revealed by Theodoros Pangalos. “It is very important for the Greek people to know that three months after the unacceptable things that happened in AGROGI, New Democracy is frantically struggling against the passing of the law on transparency of the contracts for working in the public administration, with which we have ended once and for all the practice of giving bribes that would lead Greece to bankruptcy,” said the Interior Minister Giannis Rangusis.
The case is about 269 people that were employed without opening a competition in the state company AGROGI. 73 people worked in the company until 2009 the paid wages of which amounted to € 450,000. After taking over the reins from the former minister Mr. Hadzigakis have employed another 269 only for a weekend and the wage costs have jumped to € 9.5 million. The financial transgressions of the Ministry of Agriculture include also € 1.050 million for the salaries of 70 people who have never appeared to work, but figured as officials of the agricultural department of the Ministry.
It was supposed that the AGROGI’s 269 new employees were professionals who are hired for the digitization of the plots but, in fact, they were “physical education teachers, linguists, economists, anthropologists, food technologists, cosmeticians, beauticians, dozens of students and one owner of bar in Trikala,” reveals Mr. Pangalos. The government spokesman George Petalotis said all these 269 people will be fired, emphasizing that they were illegally employed. Former Minister Hadzigakis responded with indignation that it is not possible “to massively fire 269 children, poor and with salaries of € 700.” However, the Minister of Agriculture Katerina Batzeli stated that the salaries of the kinship appointed employees were not € 700 but higher and some have amounted up to € 1400.
The storm has not ended with the revelations about the scandal with AGROGI. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture Michalis Karhimakis revealed other cases of corruption. The report of the financial controller shows that another 39 appointments in the state-owned KTIMATOLOGIO SA were made one week before the elections. A further 25 “shady" appointments of officers were found in the Hellenic Foreign Trade Organization.
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