Home / Daily news channel / News | Friday 10 February 2012 |
Ex-minister’s friends 'spend 20m euro on sex lines' |
By Allan Hall in Berlin for Daily Telegraph
Mr Hatzigakis has also been criticised for spending 150,000 euros (£125,000) of taxpayers’ money on the renovation of his 30sq ft office, as well as 71,000 euros (£59,000) on new furniture, at a time Greece has received an £110 billion (£90 billion) rescue package from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The 66-year-old politician has also been accused of placing almost 300 fellow party members as well as his own children in state-owned companies, while the largest Greek daily paper To Vima said in 2008 he created a new state company which was subordinate to his ministry with 80 of its 110 workers coming from his constituency.
The news has particularly angered Germans as their country is paying more than any other nation to underwrite the rescue package at a time when Angela Merkel’s conservative-led coalition government in Berlin has embarked on its own £73 billion austerity package, the biggest in post-war German history.
A caller to Bavarian Radio said: “This is outrageous. Germany is being asked to bail out these spendthrifts allegedly to save ourselves and the euro but we are dealing with a culture where corruption is a way of life.
“How on earth can our leaders expect to convince us that Greece is worth saving when this takes place?”
The European Commission said on Wednesday that Greece’s economic reforms were “broadly on track, despite some slippage”. The harsh austerity program has triggered protests in Greece. Thousands demonstrated again in Athens and other Greek cities on Thursday in the latest in a series of general strikes against the austerity measures.
The strike, the sixth in recent months, came a day after the Greek parliament passed controversial reforms to private sector pensions, raising the retirement age to 65 from 60 and cutting pensions.
