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22 people associated with the DOMI institute of vocational training have been charged of draining of 6.3 million euro from the largest social security fund IKA. The scandal broke out after IKA’s head Robertos Spiropoulos filed a complaint in the Athens court against the training centre.

According to the complaint, the management body of DOMI has developed a scheme for draining money from the state. The scheme involves ghost companies with non-existent services providing staff. To Vima reports that at the same time, hundreds of regular employees in the training centre have been working without their social security contributions being paid as provided by the law. The money from the ghost companies went into the private accounts of the members of the management board of the centre.

After obtaining the money, some of the ghost companies declared bankruptcy and others issued documents for pensions to non-existent employees. The inconsistencies in the system were identified following an investigation carried out by the control services of the social security fund, which has alerted the public about the fraud.

Another similar scandal broke out in Greece just a week ago. The famous private training centre - IEK XINI - has also turned out to be a tool for draining funds from the state. In this case, the management of the training institution presented false tax returns in order to receive state funding for its activities. Criminal proceedings for financial fraud and a ban on leaving the country have been launched against the owner and general manager of XINI, Sofoklis Xinis. The prosecutor’s office has filed similar charges against Xinis’ wife Athena and against his daughter Catherine. In addition to the false data submitted to the tax services, the training centre owes the social security fund more than 700 thousand euro in unpaid contributions.
 
The investigation against Xini began in April 2012 after a group of employees in the training centre filed a complaint to the supervision commission on public administration, the prosecutor’s office and the Ministry of Finance against their employers and as reported by Eleftherotipia, the complaint states that the management threatened them. They were warned that if they took any actions and made public the fact that they had been working for years without their social security being paid they would be penalized. The centre managers warned them that if they started to defend their rights in court, they would not only be fired, but would never again find a job in the system of private education.
 
The employees say that only 35% of Xini’s employees nationwide have health and pension securities. The other employees have been working with the promise that their contributions will be paid one day, without specifying exactly when this will happen. Currently, tax inspections are being carried out in the ten largest private training institutions in Greece and the expectations of experts are that violations will be established in the field of higher education as well.