Minister on DESFA chief: Promotion before pension 'not an impropriety'

The case involving a former head of Greece's gas transmission system operator DESFA was not the same as that of senior ADMIE executives and their exorbitant salary increases where the government had intervened, Environment and Energy Minister George Stathakis said in Parliament on Wednesday. He was commenting on the furore surrounding the news that a former board president and CEO of DESFA had arranged a promotion for himself just days before retiring, thus increasing his lump sum on retirement by 100,000 euros.

"My position is clear. On whether there is an issue of promotion before retirement and if this is appropriate...If the impropriety is the promotion before retirement, it is not an impropriety. You have found the wrong area to look for scandals," Stathakis said, replying to main opposition New Democracy.

According to the minister, promotion before retirement was standard practice in the public sector, where department heads were made directors or military officers rose in the ranks.

He noted that the issue concerning DESFA will be discussed in detail in Parliament but that it was entirely different from that relating to ADMIE. Despite laws deregulating salaries for senior management, it was the government's non-negotiable position that in organisations supervised by the ministries, such as ADMIE, the top salary for senior management cannot exceed that of the ministry general secretary, he added.

He noted that the government's response in ADMIE's case, where it had asked for the resignation of the executives involved, was the appropriate one.

This case was entirely unrelated to that of DESFA, he added, suggesting many of the claims made by ND MP Konstantinos Skrekas in a question on this issue tabled in Parliament were not accurate.

The issue was raised by several opposition MPs in Parliament's Production and Trade Committee, who seized the opportunity to question the minister, who attended for a discussion about the Public Power Corporation.

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