Answer Ad. Georgiadis in Al. Grace for the NSRF

“I thought that after the announcements of both ELSTAT and Eurostat in the last few days, you would find a good way to withdraw this question. And thank you very much for not doing so. It shows a great deal of courage,” said the Minister for Development. and Investments Mr. Adonis Georgiadis in Parliament responding to the head of Development and Investment of SYRIZA – PS and MP of Messinia, Alexis Haritsi, during the discussion of a relevant Topical Question.

In detail, what Mr. Georgiadis stated:

“I am starting from the last one to give you time to prepare. You said about the NSRF absorption tables that you have done the same. So I challenge you to present a NSRF table under the SYRIZA government that Greece was first in all of Europe. Give me a day when Greece was first.
For reasons of history only, because people listen to us, I point out that the day I took over the political responsibility of the NSRF with the team of the Ministry of Development, Mr. Giannis Tsakiris, Mr. Dimitris Skalkos and the Special Secretaries, Mr. George Zervos and Mrs. Niki Dandolou, we were in position 19 in absorption.
Today, our Greece from the 19th place is in the 1st place. And when we talk about absorption we are talking about payments. So we are talking about money that reaches the real economy. Be careful, we are not talking about a commitment index. You did indeed commit the NSRF to various projects, most of which never took place. Here we are talking about expenses, about bill payments, that is, about money that reached the real economy. So, to your question if money reaches the real economy, yes, since we are the first in Europe, money reaches the Greek economy.
Let’s go a little wider because, since you were in the Ministry of Development and I will say you were also a good minister, within the framework of the SYRIZA government I would say surprisingly good, I come to the case that interests me.
Public Investment Program, national component and co-financed. That is, for the people to understand, because you understand but the people do not understand, and national resources, with our own money, and resources that we pay and take back from Europe, the part of the NSRF.
In the days of SYRIZA, five years of SYRIZA, was there a year, one that was executed 100% without “parking” money at the end? Not even once. Do you know what you did every year? And it is impressive.
It is impressive that for five years SYRIZA one of the issues that the troika puts in all its reports is the under-execution of the Public Investment Program. That is, at the same time that the Greek economy was in recession, at the same time that we all said we had no money, you managed for five years not to give the money of the Public Investment Program to the real economy for even one year.
And so you went every time at the end of the year and put 500 million in the Development Bank, 600 million in the Bank of Greece. In other words, you “parked” the available ones so as not to lose them in various accounts, because you had not managed to pay them in the world, in the real economy.
During the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and me as Minister of Development and Investment, what has happened, Mr. Haritsis, during these two years in the Public Investment Program, do you know? That’s exactly the question you are asking me.
In 2020, the Public Investment Program in Greece spent 11 billion euros and I am proud of that. It is the largest expenditure of the Public Investment Program since the first day that Greece joined the European economic communities.
And this year, for the second year, we will close at 10 billion euros, which is the second best performance in the history of Greece since our accession to the European economic communities.
And because you asked me about payments. This year, we have tripled the Public Investment Program. For what reason; Because money is spent. That is, the payments you ask me for are already being made.
And they are made by a Government that does not let a single day go to waste, that we are above the problems of the people 24 hours a day, that we do not leave and we have not left a single business alone, that we work to solve the problems, to dismantle payments, execute projects and make investments.
For this, I will return to my deuterology to the specifics that were set, mainly in the “Save” program that interests me, because it is important for people to hear it.
Mr. Haritsis, you said a little bit about the development of the Greek economy in 2021. Yes, recovery is obvious. Of course, internationally it is called growth. Growth indicators speak for themselves in the European Union, in the international economy, and therefore in Greece.
But I want to fully accept what you said. From -9.1% in 2020, from a very big recession, everyone expected in 2020 that our Greece would have the biggest recession in the European Union. He did not have it. Spain had it, which is also your political model, with a very big difference. This year, we will see where it will go, we say 7.1%, but with the data that has been published it seems that this is a mediocre calculation.
We aim to be one of the three European economies that will have healed in terms of GDP all the damage of the ’20s in one year. Be careful, 24 other countries of the European Union will not have achieved what our Greece has achieved, so do not take it for granted, Mr. Haritsis “.

Deuterology:

“Mr Haritsis, I told you, if you have any, to submit a Commission table to be the first. the relevant table.
I told you that commitment is one thing and absorption is another. You made a commitment, you did not make payments. In order for the people to understand it differently, when I took over the political responsibility of the Ministry and you were already in the 5th year of the NSRF 2014-2020, -in 2019 I took over-, you had spent 22%. From 100% of the NSRF you had managed to pay 22%. Yesterday, 2.5 years later, we are at 75%. So do not talk to me about payments. The record that has been set in the last 2.5 years must be recorded in Greek history.
Now, as for what you said that this has happened because of the cost of the pandemic, I deliberately referred to a comparative table, a table between the 27 countries.
As far as I can remember, all 27 countries have a pandemic. Our conditions are not different from those of other countries. We just did better than all the other countries. This is the difference. We are first and everyone else sees us with binoculars. And for that you should be happy, Mr. Haritsis, as a Greek citizen and MP and not get upset. Frustration with our national success is a bad thing.
Suffice it to say that yesterday the new Minister of Finance of Germany, Mr. Lindner – and because you said about inflation in Greece – said the following inimitable that did not play so much in the media. The other has said what he said because we must become an example like Greece, to follow Greece. He said that “Greece is now a model country with high growth and low inflation.” He said this in the German Parliament yesterday.
Of course, we have the lowest, one of the three lowest inflation rates in the whole of the European Union. On an annual basis, Mr. Haritsis, we will have 0.1%. If 0.1% is called high inflation, tell me.
As for the November that we had 4.3%, if you read correctly you would know that in November of ’20 with which the comparison is made we had -2%. So, from -2% we have gone to 4.3%. You do not know that either.
Whatever you do, for three days now all the international media and all the European authorities have been congratulating Greece. The only ones who do not recognize it are you.
In terms of payments. There is no stoppage of payments. Just the day before yesterday, the regions were given 100 million by the public investment program to make payments.
And let me remind you that we have already paid all the regions all the money we provided for in the budget. That is, the 100 million we gave them is above the budget, it is extra money to pay from what we had budgeted at the beginning of the year.
So, no Governor should complain about anything at all. They took all the money we had said we would give them and now we gave them an extra 100 million.
And as for the co-financed arm – because that’s 100 million is the national arm – we gave another εκατο 300 million to make payments. So in total in the previous 4 days we gave 400 million. So do not tell me about the cessation of payments.
And I repeat, Mr. Haritsis, how is it possible that we have stopped payments at the same time, as you falsely claim, and at the same time have the greatest absorption and execution of the public investment program?
Be careful, for the people to understand the difference: the highest point that SYRIZA has ever reached, in five years, in the public investment program, summing up the national and the co-financed part, was 4 billion. And what we have achieved in two consecutive years is 21 billion.
So now let’s go to “Save” to close. In “Saving” there is a real problem that I want to talk about so that people can hear it. What has happened;
Of the applications submitted, only 1% have complete applications in the first evaluation. That is, out of 100 applications, 99 have internal errors that according to the regulation it is forbidden to make the payment. 20% of applications are completed after the second evaluation. This means after they re-submit the application. 40% after the third evaluation. That is, they have submitted the application for the third time. And 39% remain with problems even after the third evaluation.
So, there is a serious problem and when filing the applications they should be much more careful in the way they make the deposit in “I save” if they want to get their money fast.
The money is pledged to the Development Bank and as soon as the application is accepted the payment is made the same second automatically. If you have not made a mistake on the platform you are automatically paid.
You will surely know if you are diligent that in the control that EFTHY did on the payments of the previous program “I save”, during your days, it found so many errors in the applications that it put a fine of 7 million in the Development Bank.
For what reason; Because you did pay, but you paid without checking. And who finally paid the money? The Greek taxpayer.
So we said no application will be paid if it is not completely correct under the regulation. And those who make the requests make sure they do it right. Because you taught them to do them incorrectly and finally the Greek taxpayer pays them again. If you want the audit report of EFTHY on your days, to see what crimes you committed, very happy.
So it is audacity on the part of the SYRIZA party to make suggestions to us. In all their indicators we have surpassed in an amazing way. “And I’m very proud of that.”