Greek cabinet decided today to sack Katerina Savvaidou from the position of General secretary for Public Revenues. According to government spokeswoman, the cabinet accepted the relevant proposal submitted by Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos. Spokeswoman Gerovassili implied that Savvaidou “was acting against the public interest.”
Last week an Athens prosecutor charged Savvaidou with “breach of duty for extending by about a year tax collection on revenues on TV advertising.” Greek media reported also of another case according to which she was suspect of being involved into the “freezing” of the payment of a 78-million-euro fine to a Greek company. This could raise felony charges.
Two days ago, via his FinMin, PM Tsipras asked Savvaidou to resign from her post. She refused to comply with the Prime Minister’s request and issued a public statement denying any wrongdoing. That was the icing on the top of the government – Savvaidou row, hence the cabinet decision.
The General Secretary for Public Revenues is appointed for 5 years and cannot be fired. However he/she can be dismissed under certain conditions.
“By law, when someone is charged with a misdemeanor, the cabinet has the ability to take such a decision (of dismissal),” the government source told Reuters
Savvaidou was appointed in summer 2014 after ND-PASOK government had sacked Haris Theocharis, who later became MP from To Potami. Theocharis was ‘officially’ sacked for mistakes in the property Tax calculations.
The institution of Public Revenues, Greece top tax collection agency, is supposed to be an independent institution. Savvaidou was acting indeed ‘independent’ issuing circulars and decisions which sometimes they looked to be without previous agreement with the government.
However, the General Secretary is being appointed by the acting governmen. Well…
PS I think nobody liked Savvaidou except for Greece’s creditors
Greece will never improve if the Tax Authority has no independence from the govt. If she did something wrong, it is up to the courts to charge her and then sack her. The courts have not proved anything, just accused her or something. This does not mean it is true or not.
The Greek govt is just acting like the old days. SYRIZA is the new PASOK. Expect a lot more misery to come in Greece from a blatant lack of interest in reforming and blaming everyone else for everything.
What an interesting “defense” of oligarch protector Savvidou! “Greece will never improve” eh? That’s the only “reason” you can come up with? Why not that we are “genetically corrupt” etc as mooted by the neolib press as cover for their nefarious deeds, the old ‘blame the victim’ distraction. But maybe you didn’t have enough energy yesterday….a bad day.
Depends of course on what “improvements” you want – Troika Pinochet / Chile looting “improvements” as advocated by Klaus Kastner etc., or a very old fashioned idea of clean transparent government a la Capodistrias.
There are reports that the population of Germany are demanding that ANGELA MERKEL be sacked.
it is said that ANGELA MERKEL is in hiding as her security personnel fear for her safety.
I think news from Europe travel to Australia with a broken cable
All high ranking politicians in Germoney have to hide since the 1970ies and this will only stop when the Red Army Faction gets a legal party just like it happened in Uruguay but it’s interesting to see that former south-American dictatorships are more democratic than a country that produced cars that are responsible for 10% of climate-rape.