The President of the Republic Mr Nikos Anastasiadis has welcomed today at the Presidential Palace the General Auditor of the Republic Mrs. Chrystala Giorkajii, who presented to him the Annual Report of her Office for the year 2012 .
Receiving the report, the President addressing to Mrs. Giorkajii said that “I want to assure you that by showing sensitivity to your timeless comments and disinterest I’ve decided to set up Audit Committees in each of the ministries and departments which will monitor your comments, so that on one hand there will be a corrective intervention and on the other hand there will be even tighter control based on the experiences gained and the observations recorded.
Having no control or having indifference in control is a situation that permanently and immovably will be terminated. The modernization of the public service is the main goal. The financial needs require ‘tidying up’ and this ‘tidying up’ equals to a good administration. Through this good administration we can achieve a lot.”
On her side, Ms. Giorkajii said the report is a «long text of information and data for every organization in the state and the broader public sector. Despite the fact that the findings refer to the previous government, however, you will find suggestions that you can use to configure your own policies. The role of the Auditor General does not end at finding weaknesses and mismanagement, but should be extended by making suggestions to improve the management of the state.
In these special economic circumstances, the role of the Audit Office is even more important. We want to help saving costs and in better management of public money. “
After the meeting, Ms. Giorkajii among her statements to the reporters said that in the report of her Office “there are a number of suggestions which, unfortunately, if they were adopted previously, measures today would not have to be taken”.
The economy situation, society’s situation is dramatic. Recession, rising unemployment, high public debt, depreciation of institutions and policy, with whatever that implies for the quality of democracy, create a very difficult situation.
There is a lack of administration systems in the Ministries and organizations, not in the sense that there are no capable and deserving directors – the State houses excellent executives – but they must have the means and motivation to be able to attribute.
There is lack of coordination, lack of planning and there are plenty of examples for this.
Recently it was decided to erect a Culture Palace, a project for which we have spend more than 20 million Euros so far and these conditions combined with the lack of its timely integration in the projects for EU co-financing and the high operating costs each year, now makes its construction impossible.
In 2005 a mechanism was adopted for price fixing drugs, made by the Minister of Health, and predicts that prices are set as the average value of the corresponding drug of an accurate, an inexpensive and two medium-sized countries. This mechanism did not work as it should in the coming years and two years ago through some actions, a reduction in drug prices of an average around 7 % was achieved, but in the current painful conditions we should no longer have to aim on being a middle country in drug prices, but we have to change this mechanism and aim for the drugs –as a first need- to be offered in the best possible prices, since we are under the Memorandum.
There are examples of projects that while undertaken and millions of Euros were spent for their implementation, eventually were abandoned and remained unexploited.
There are thousands of criminal warrants that are not executed because the citizens that are referring to cannot be found. These warrants are more than 135 million Euros and we have reached a time where economic conditions may make it impossible for some to pay such warrants. The issue was not reaching here in the first place.
‘There are significant amounts of uncollected taxes’, said and added that” we have submitted to the Inland Revenue Department a list of self-employed persons ( of two professional groups ) that the lifestyle does not comply with their tax data and some do not even have a tax file. It is the most difficult time to take the necessary measures, so we should not be complacent but when an obligation is created, measures to meet this obligation must be taken. “
Finally, she said that “an interface of files was achieved and with the opinion of the Attorney General and by amending the Law, it has become clear now that Privacy Law cannot be a shelter to people who try to fool the State.”
