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Tuesday 27 March 2012

Supervisors have found hundreds of millions generously spent in the time of Karamanlis

 

 

Ιllegal government spending worth 618 million euro for the period 2009 before the fall of the government of Costas Karamanlis was found by the control body to the Court. Such unreasonably high government spending was found in the state budget in 2008 when it reached 66 million euro. Pre-election period three years ago catalyzed its multiplication by ten, mainly by the paying of additional fees, unnecessary supplies, emergency appointments in the public sector, benefits to the salaries of employees in the public sector and other irregularities that cost hundreds of millions to Greek taxpayers during the last year of the New Democracy government.

Many of the serious violations were related to signing non-competitive bids for the supply of medical equipment and medications without performing the mandatory public tender. Such practices were used in the field of national defence, where there were requests for supplies worth over 5.8 million euro. Costs were not justified, but the money had been paid and it is not yet clear what was obtained against it, report Greek media.
After considering the reports, the supervisory authority of the defence ministry refused to approve a cost of fuel worth 575,000 euro. The reasons for refusal were that there was no competition for a supply contract, which has been discovered recently. For the same reasons, orders for other types of materials worth 813,000 euro are still awaiting approval. During the same period a 82.2% jump was reported in the cost of materials for machine maintenance, namely an additional 460 million euro. Costs exceeding 1.5 million euro in the defence ministry alone for supplies for the fleet, army and military hospitals remain under question. It is not yet clear how much other irregular expenditure has been made in this institution over the years.
Unclear procedures for the approval of suppliers have called into question 16.3 million euro spent in the health ministry. Irregular expenditure of 27.3 thousand euro was made in the largest insurance institute in the region of Kiparisias. The state hospital in Grevena gave generous benefits to the medical staff, exceeding 76,000 euro. Papers were submitted to the transport ministry trying to exceed the amount of the Olympic Air privatization with over 230,000 euro in unjustified costs for advertising. The National Technical University, in turn, demanded by "mistake" 300,000 euro more than what was allocated in the state budget and this sum was paid with no clear notion of its purpose, again because of "inattention".
Generous distribution of money undoubtedly leads to the need for increased lending. In 2009, Greece’s borrowing from foreign markets jumped by 51.1% compared with the size of external financing in 2008. At the same time, the government mechanism for revenue collection failed and it was 47.4% lower than the results in 2008. The main black holes of budgetary money are central government (ministries and public enterprises) and local government organizations. In early 2009, the government estimated that it would need 64.5 billion euro from lending while it turned out at the end of the year that Greece borrowed 105.5 billion euro. The jump in spending by 50 billion euro cost Greece dearly in 2009 although economic analysts state that the preconditions for slipping down the slope had been laid much earlier.
 GRReporter

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