A big apology, investments in Greece, 700 new jobs and scholarships is the compensation that the giant SIEMENS will pay to Greece for the bribes it gave fro several decades to secure public contracts. The compensation list includes also 170 million euro in cash and a statement of support that Greece will overcome the crisis and a call to investors around the world. After three months of negotiations between Greece and SIEMENS a deal was reached, a deal that will almost put an end to the decades-long bribes scandal.
SIEMENS commits to open a factory in Greece and create 700 new jobs, to invest 100 million euro to the SIEMENS Hellas, to provide 90 million euro for educational programmes and 100 scholarships to Greeks for studies in German universities. Further, it will no demand also 80 million euro from Greece for projects it has concluded.
Greece will refrain from further compensations and fines from SIEMENS, including its managers, even for money laundering.
The deal needs the approval of Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and the ratification by the Greek Parliament.
Happy end for a big scandal? Oh, those Greek politicians who received the bribes are still among us…..
Below a short summary by AFP
Greece and German electronics giant Siemens are close to finalising a 170-million-euro (227-million) deal to end a decade-old bribery scandal, a Greek daily reported on Friday.
Kathimerini daily said the accord would include cash, a pledge to invest in crisis-hit Greece, a settlement of unpaid Greek bills worth 80 million euros and the provision of technology know-how.
Asked to comment on the report, Siemens’ subsidiary in Athens said “discussions are ongoing.”
The Greek government last year demanded compensation from the German giant which has admitted keeping a slush fund to obtain foreign contracts.
A Greek parliamentary committee has determined that inflated contract prices cost the country lost more than two billion euros during the 1990s.
Part of that money is believed to have ended up in the pockets of some senior Greek officials who helped broker the contracts.
The parliamentary committee set up to investigate the Siemens scandal last year implicated 15 ministers or former ministers from the main two parties, Pasok and New Democracy, which have alternated in power for the past three decades.
Two former Pasok officials — a former party strategist and aide to ex-PM Costas Simitis and a former minister — have admitted taking money from Siemens over a decade ago.
But because of a law setting a short statute of limitations for ministers, only former socialist minister Tassos Mantelis was pursued, and he has yet to be tried over the case.
Three local Siemens officials wanted by Greek justice were also able to flee the country.
An arbitration is currently in process in Paris over two of Siemens’ top contracts from that period, Kathimerini said.
One was a project to digitalise the network of main Greek telecoms provider OTE. The other contract involved a costly security system for the Athens 2004 Olympics that failed to work properly.
Also some reporting by KTG HERE
Greek people live in a state of “corrupt legality”, meaning that the law often condones or even fosters corrupt practices.
http://media.transparency.org/nis/cogs/assets/ge/pdf/NIS_Executive%20Summary_TI%20Greece.pdf
International investors certainly have followed the case and will draw their own conculsions: Firstly, you have to hand over huge sums in fakelakis to Greek officials or else you won’t have any chance to win the contract, and after that, other Greek officials will paint your company as corrupt, wreck your reputation, drag you to court and squeeze even more money out of you. And at the same time your project will face one roadblock after another, and it’s highly questionable if you’ll ever be paid the negotiated price for your works. It’s certainly a bit difficult to make a profit under these conditions.
Now, I don’t want to cry crocodile’s tears for Siemens, they can afford the comüromise deal, and they won’t go broke because a single international project went astray. But the undeniable fact that despite all the Greek “righteous” outrage about this corruption case, not a single of their officials landed in jail, is very distrubing, indeed.
Yes, I agree with you Gray. Very disturbing indeed that not one official landed in jail…