The German magazine Der Spiegel claims that while Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ government is about to pass a $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan and fire thousands of public workers that people close to him are being appointed to key jobs while two million Greeks are out of work and others have taken big pay cuts.
The first case was the appointment as head of EOPYY (the Greek health and insurance organization) of a member of Samaras’ New Democracy Conservative party who had no experience in the field, the magazine said.
Another friend of the Premier, from his home area of Messinia, was named to replace the head of the financial crimes squad SDOE who was looking into tax evasion cases. The magazine said the appointee, Stylianos Stasinopoulos, doesn’t have any experience in regional administration, as he was an employee in municipality. Samaras also appointed many people from Messinia in the Acropolis Museum when he was a Minister of Culture in 2009.
The new President of OPAP, the Greek publicly-owned company responsible for gambling, also comes from Samaras’ circle, the magazine said, which led to programming changes at the state broadcaster NET to excise shows said to be about social issues the government didn’t favor at a time of unrest over the country’s crushing economic crisis.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
