The Development Minister, Takis Theodorikakos, responding to a current question from the president of Course of Freedom, Zoe Konstantopoulou, regarding the Court of Audit report on public contracts, stated that “the Development Ministry has responsibility for the regulatory framework and legislation, not for controlling the implementation of public contract provisions.”
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The minister emphasized that transparency everywhere, for everyone and everything constitutes a fundamental principle both for himself and for the government as a whole, and that there can be no compromises on matters of ethics and legality. He reminded of the recent legislative initiative by the Development Ministry that created a special body of civil servants, properly trained for concluding and monitoring public contracts, and established asset declarations for all involved public officials, beyond those for whom such obligation already existed.
He specifically referred to the 1,400 investment projects from older development laws that were not completed and are being removed through legislative regulation by the Development Ministry “so that procedures for returning hundreds of millions of euros to the Greek public treasury can proceed quickly.”
Regarding the Court of Audit report, the Development Minister responded that “pre-contractual control is mandatory before signing a contract – from €300,000 by a Court of Audit Commissioner, from €1,700,000 by a panel for funds from national resources, and over €5 million for funds coming from EU panels. Without the Court of Audit’s favorable opinion, no contract is signed. Therefore, nothing illegal has occurred anywhere.” He even called on Ms. Konstantopoulou to publicly report and submit to the prosecutor any illegality that may have occurred.
Furthermore, in his second response, Takis Theodorikakos emphasized that “my permanent position is that throwing mud at the fan is not good for Democracy. Your phrase ‘how much more will they eat’ is an extreme and slanderous statement that offers nothing to the role of democracy and the responsibility each of us must have for credibility reasons in Parliament.”
Finally, regarding OPEKEPE, he responded that the government position in practice is one and clear: “Bring back what was stolen.” He continued that the government will be judged on this for its effectiveness, stating that “it is a matter of credibility of our politics that money begins to be returned and judicial procedures begin against those who stole from Greek and European taxpayers and wronged our farmers.”
