It seems that slowly Greece’s lenders come more closely to the Greek realities. Apparently the IFM/EU/ECB controllers are deeply frustrated that they wouldn’t hesitate to propose shocking solutions for drastic cuts in public spending. “The situation is deteriorating instead of improving, tax and customs offices are not able to collect revenues, corruption goes unpunished” say apparently the Troika guys according to a report from Brussels published in the Greek daily TA NEA .
“The situation is deteriorating rather than improving, at least in terms of how services generated revenue such as tax offices and customs. This finding leads them to believe that now is impossible to fill the black hole, which is expected to reach 4.8 to 5.8 billion at the end of the first six months of the year,” claims the newspaper without naming any sources.
The Troika seems stunned to get confronted with the Greek civil servants and the way the state apparatus and the control mechanism apporaches the necessity of cuts in public spending.
What did the Troika see in Greece?
– The state does not reimburse the Value Added Tax to the citizens; the collect it and wrongly write it down to the revenues.
– Tax offices rush to collect taxes from some citizens earlier than they should, while they don’t collect taxes at all from others – depending on ‘connections’, bribes not excluded.
– At customs offices the situation is even worse with employees ignoring the EU and even the national regulations.
-Cost saving in the public sector has been limited into wages cuts only while other types of reducing costs are not applied. Troika criticizes the lack of rationalization in the cost-services calculation.
-Overpricing continues to be the rule in every project. Fixing street holes costs fours times more in Greece than in Brussels.
-Corruption is widespread not only in public administration, it’s being continuously growing in the private sector as well.
