SYRIZA accuses the government of a lack of an operational plan in dealing with the fires

Hara Kafantaris, deputy head of the Civil Protection Department of SYRIZA-PS, blames the Mitsotakis government for the lack of an operational plan in terms of dealing with the fires.

In her statement she says: “In the same project viewers! Unfortunately, despite last year’s devastating fires with the loss of 1.33 million hectares and timely warnings from scientific bodies (such as the National Observatory of Athens), the government of Mr. Mitsotakis and the Ministry Climate Crisis and Civil Protection they did not learn lessons, while the lack of a specific operational plan is visible. The staff state of Mr. Mitsotakis and the relevant Ministry will be judged on the PREVENTION and RESTORATION policies, after the end. But it is a fact, that clean-ups of useless biomass were not completed, reinforcement of the Fire Brigade with personnel (3600 organic vacancies in the Fire Brigade) and sufficient modern equipment was not done, modern operational plans with the local peculiarities of the areas were not prepared and in general the stage of Prevention was underestimated”.

Generalizing, Ms. Kafantari argues: “The logic that everything is someone else’s fault… such as the Climate Crisis, the morphology of the soil, etc. and the invocation of what is happening in other Mediterranean countries, arguments used by the government and the relevant ministry, do not justify the lack of proper preparation and the insufficient response of the mechanism. The SYRIZA PS has timely elaborated and submitted to the Parliament, since November 2019, a draft law on the creation of a National Civil Protection Authority, a bill based on modern scientific data and conclusions. It is now time for a new Authority in Civil Protection as well, a new Authority, which can only proceed after immediate Political Change”.