Greek media has presented so far the cost of deputies in Parliament and their surrounding entourage for taxpayers. According to the data that Deputy Minister of Finance Filippos Sahinidis has submitted to Parliament, the costs of the presidential institution for 2010 were included in the 2011 budget. These include the salaries and expenses of President Carlos Papoulias, salaries of civilian and military employees, transportation costs, costs of food, clothing, restaurant services, sports activities and others. The amounts are huge and shock the public sense of justice, comments the electronic edition zoulga.gr.
Particularly interesting is that part of the text describing the relationship between today's President and former chairman of PASOK and Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. When separated from the mother of former Prime Minister George Papandreou to marry the much younger Dimitra Liani, Andreas Papandreou decided to build a small palace, known as "the pink villa in Ekali." Because he did not have the amount needed, he turned to his "comrades" from PASOK for help. Zougla.gr recalls that today's President Carlos Papoulias was one of the people who then lent concrete amounts to the Prime Minister in love. Another lender was a Syrian businessman named Halak, who continues to have very close relationships with the Papandreou family.
Since he was able to lend such an amount, Carlos Papoulias apparently did not have financial problems. When times are hard, the head of the state is the one who should first give an example and the presidential institution should therefore reduce its costs, reads the article. According to the report of the Bank of Greece, which was released yesterday, 500,000 Greeks have no income. At the same time, the salary of their President is higher than that of his US counterpart Barack Obama, who receives 200,000 dollars a year. Maintenance costs of the presidential institution and its staff are also very indicative.
According to official figures, in 2010, the Greek President received € 277,469 in salary and this amount does not include additional costs, which amounted to € 77,593. The total amount is € 355,062 per year or € 1,777,530 for a presidential term.
The cost of salaries of employees in the presidential institutions cost Greek taxpayers € 2,052,935. No one knows the exact number of these employees, whether they have been transferred there from other government departments and what those departments are. The military, guarding the presidential institution, should feel somewhat underprivileged. For their salaries, the state pays only € 664,872.
Categories with the code names "payments for other services" and "additional and rendered services" draw particular interest because it is not clear for what services € 425,226 and € 438,683 are spent respectively. Much smaller amounts are spent on transport (€ 14,843), for the supply of hygiene and cleaning products (€ 24,360) and provision of equipment through procurement (€ 26,622).
To provide building maintenance, food, clothing, shoes, restaurant services and sporting goods, Greek taxpayers give another € 104,500.
In an attempt to learn the exact number of civilian employees in the Greek presidential institution, the author of the material contacted the head of the administrative department Ekaterini Florou. She hung up the phone after saying that she would not provide these data, and without stating who could do it. Zougla.gr contacted the press office of the presidential institution, from where they promised to respond. There has been no result yet.
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