Al. Tsipras for 6.7 billion direct assignments: Plunder in public money with the seal of K. Mitsotaki

After the meeting with the Management of the Single Independent Public Procurement Authority, the President of SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, Alexis Tsipras, made the following statement to the press:

“I visited the Single Public Procurement Authority today to express my strong concern about the fact that the government, since the beginning of the pandemic, has used it to proceed with a series of deviations from the law, in relation to direct assignments and closed tenders. .

All this time we have been talking about the excessive amount of 5 billion euros in the first 18 months. The four months that followed until October, increased this amount to close to 7 billion euros. Four billion in closed tenders and 2.7 billion in direct assignments. In fact, direct assignments, for which the government had taken care to legislate the increase of the limit from 20,000 to 60,000 euros and the removal of any limit for assignments related to the pandemic.

In the name of the pandemic, abusively, 2.7 billion were made. direct transfers, while the pandemic involved only € 320 million.

This is a yurousi, a robbery of public money with the Mitsotaki seal. And I wonder: Who will manage the billions of the Recovery Fund? This government that seizes every opportunity to plunder public money without giving an account?

It is a matter of democracy. And I call on all political forces to take a stand. And of course, the government to apologize to the Greek taxpayer “.

Earlier, during his meeting with the Administration of the Single Independent Public Procurement Authority, Mr. Tsipras requested information on the work of the Authority and the explosive increase of public procurement that is done either by direct assignments or by closed tenders, noting that According to the Authority, from 4.9 billion euros in 18 months until last June, within 4 months the total amount reached 6.7 billion euros.

“At a time when the last euro of taxpayers is crucial and useful, and especially now that social needs are growing by the unprecedented wave of accuracy, it is particularly important for citizens to know where and how taxpayers’ money is spent,” he said. Mr. Tsipras.

In this context, he underlined his concerns and left hints for “an abusive tendency to include even fixed public expenditures in expenditures due to a pandemic”.

At the same time, the alarm bell rang for “bad habits of the past that led us to fiscal diversion”. “Despite the fact that the country is in much better conditions than it was in the difficult conditions of the 8 years of the memoranda, we must not forget that some bad habits led us to the fiscal diversion,” he noted.

Finally, referring to the forthcoming merger of the Authority, he spoke of “substantial degradation”, noting that transparency about the elements of public contracts is a key element of the Republic “.