The Financial Prosecution asked for a criminal inquiry against the head of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) Andreas Georgiou and two of his subordinates, over claims that together with the government of George Papandreou they manipulated budget figures to justify Greece’s appeal for an international financial bailout to the IMF.
In a few short words, the “cooked” figures made the Greek government do things that made the government more sustainable than necessary.
The dynamic duo, or Financial prosecutors Spyros Mouzakitis and Grigoris Peponis have asked as a Magistrate who deals with corruption issues to investigate if Georgiou, the head of the national accounts department Constantinos Morfetas and the head of statistical research, Aspasia Xenaki, are responsible for cooking the figures so that Greece’s deficit appeared larger than it actually was, triggering Athens’s appeal for a bailout to the IMF.
The three face charges of dereliction of duty and making false statements.
Former ELSTAT official Zoe Georganta caused a storm in 2011 when she directly accused Georgiou of skyrocketing Greece’s deficit to over 15 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, or three times higher than the conservative government of Costas Karamanlis had forecast in 2009. She had told a panel of parlimentarians last year (March) that she knew of no organized plan behind this alleged manipulation of statistics, and instead blamed the politicians that handled Greece’s passage to the EU-IMF bailout (or former Finance Minister George Papakostantinou and former premier George Papandreou).
Georganta had noted at the time that the deficit for 2009 should have been 12.5 percent of GDP and could have easily been brought to below 10 percent with immediate measures, clearly supporting the estimations made by the previous government of Costas Karamanlis. She had also said that when Andreas Georgiou took over at ELSTAT in the summer of 2010, he employed the toughest methodology available to calculate the deficit, which was revised from 13.6 percent to 15.4 percent. She said that the inclusion of debts run up by Greece’s public enterprises (DEKOs) in the 2009 figure is not a common practise.
On his part, Georgiou, as well as his predecessor Ilias Plaskovitis, have already denied that the deficit figure was artificially cooked. The ELSTAT chief insists that Greece’s accounting standards were simply brought in line with the demands of Eurostat.
Our Opinion - Once again... HellasFrappe was right!
To find out more about this subject we suggest that you also read
- SPECIAL REPORT - Time For George To Stand Trial! - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/01/special-report-time-for-george-to-stand.html
- SPECIAL REPORT - Masterminds Of ELSTAT Fake Deficit Finally Exposed - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/01/special-report-masterminds-of-elstat.html
- SPECIAL REPORT - Case of ELSTAT - A Well Orchestrated Crime - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/03/special-report-case-of-elstat-well.html
- The Time For Justice Has Arrived - Papandreou And Papakostantinou to Stand Trial - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/06/time-for-justice-has-arrived-papandreou.html
- SHOCKING - How Germany Encouraged Papandreou to PUMP Up the 2009 Greek Deficit - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/06/shocking-how-germany-encouraged.html
- GAME OVER - The REAL Greek Deficit of 2009 Was Only 3.9% of GDP! - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2012/09/game-over-real-greek-deficit-of-2009.html
- Georganta tells all to G. Trangas about fake Greek deficit scandal (VIDEOS) - http://hellasfrappe.blogspot.com/2011/09/georganta-tells-all-to-g-trangas-about.html
Georgo pes alevri... o korydallos se girevi
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