When we said that Korydallos prison should start dusting out a couple of jail cells on Wednesday we were not exaggerating. It looks like former premier George Papandreou and his sidekick -the former Finance Minister (and present minister of Environment and Energy) George Papakonstantinou received a few more slaps on Thursday with the testimony from govenor of the Bank of Greece George Provopoulos. The head of the Greek central bank literally wiped his hands clean with the dynamic duo, when he gave his testimony before the committee that is probing the allegations claiming that Greece was dragged into the arms of the Troika because the state and the Greek Statistics Authority (ELSTAT) purposely falsified the deficit numbers in order to implement harsh austerity measures.
Provopoulos made it clear that he had informed former premier Costas Karamanlis and George Papandreou on the actual state of the economy on September 8th 2009 and proposed that "serious fiscal measures" be adopted immediately, something that Karamanlis rallied for in the 2009 elections.
This was days before George Papandreou adopted the phrase "money exists", calling Karamanlis a liar and he used this phrase throughout his political campaign. It also debunks Papandreou's and Papakonstantinou's argument that they did not know about the state of economy before they took office.
Provopoulos underlined that if the measures he proposed were adopted then, then Greece would be in a totally different position today and "we would have avoided the IMF". This last statement was a direct hit to Papandreou and Papakonstantinou and had a profound impact on the committee.
Provopoulos' testimony only adds one more piece to this controversial and scandalous puzzle.The constant revision to the 2009 deficit was common knowledge by both Papandreou and his officer George Papaconstantinou and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that with so many revisions there would have been repercussions on the markets.
With today's testimony, G. Papakonstantinou will now testify to Inquiry completely completely "exposed". What is obvious here is that Papakonstantinou is going to be used as the scapegoat by "the system" and will probably take the blame, so that they can wash their hands clean from the responsibilities they have.
Editor's Note - "αν κοιμασαι με τις κοτες θα σε φανε τα πιτουρα"
TO READ EARLIER STORIES CLICK HERE