Greek Municipalities Refuse To Declare Their Employees To State

For three years the Greek state has tried and failed to count the total number of employees in local municipalities. And if the Ministry of the Interior has information about those who work in the central services of municipalities and municipal bodies which function as Legal Public Entities, the same is not the case with the 133 Legal Private Entities of municipalities (out of a total of 693) which refused to participate in the census.

The developmental municipal enterprises refuse to send the information under the excuse that ‘they don’t burden the state budget given that they are chiefly funded through programs’ such as European Structural Funds.

In reality however they are a ‘part’ of the state, given that they receive state funding through the municipal owned shares. At such enterprises it is estimated that 12,000 people are employed of which 6,000 make up the boards which handle the funds as they see fit. It is worthy of note that many of these enterprises should have shut because they are loss making, yet the relevant bodies have not, to this day, proceeded with any of the necessary audits.

And the chaos has no end. Some employees are paid excessively for no reason while others have not been paid for months, some operate under special conditions and others are not listed anywhere, many different types of contracts and means of hiring make up the riddle that the government is trying to solve in local government with meagre results.