State grant to Pasok think tank Istame for the "restructuring" of Georgian parliament was signed off by the director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou. The grants were approved while Papandreou was foreign minister.
Auditors in 2013 recommended the return of 200,000 Euros in grants which the Greek state provided, via PASOK's party research foundation, for a “restructuring” of the Georgian parliament that may have never taken place, Eleftherotypia revealed at the weekend.
In 2002, the foreign ministry's developmental agency, Hellenic Aid, agreed to fund 75% of a 413,399-program Euros to assist in the revamping of the legal, the organisational and operational framework of the parliament and to contribute to computerising the body's work.
The grant was approved by the new director of Hellenic Aid, Alex Rondos, a close associate of onetime advisor to then foreign minister George Papandreou, who appointed him to the position.
Last week it emerged that Rondos, who served as the European Union’s special representative for the Horn of Africa from 2012 to 2013, is also suspected by police of involvement in a 8.9 million Euros fraud at another NGO, International Mining Initiative, from 2000 to 2004.
The Greek NGO which would oversee the program was the PASOK-affiliated think tank, the Andreas Papandreou Institute of Strategic and Development Studies (Istame).
The 18-month program had a total budget of 413,399 Euros three-quarters of which came from Hellenic Aid. It was to run March 2004, the year in which, according to reports, Rondos he became advisor to the then Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Following reports in 2012 about corruption in NGOs affiliated with Hellenic Aid, the ministry ordered an audit of all 600 organisations in receipt of funding.
According to the audit into the Georgian parliament "restructuting" program, Istame was unable to account for 340,400 Euros in grants. In addition, the audit was unable to ascertain from the files whether the project was ever completed. Its conclusion was that Istame must return 199,445 Euros to Hellenic Aid.
As the report was completed in 2013, it raises the question as to why it is now only coming to light, given that the current foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, is now the PASOK leader.
What the audit found
- According to the documentation seen by the auditors, the ministerial decision authorising the first tranche of the grant (amounting to 155,000 Euros) was signed on 12 July 2002, six weeks before the contract was signed between Hellenic Aid and Istame, on August 30th, 2002.
- The file also contains a letter from the Georgian parliament saying that the works had not been completed by December 6, 2007. The same letter also said that he had received an official invitation to visit from the Georgian parliament, the director of the NGO [Istame], never paid a visit to Georgia, as was foreseen by the program.
- The audit found that much of the documentation submitted to support the grant were photocopies of certified documents, not originals. Other documents were not certified at all.
- The file also showed that Istame did not seek official translations of foreign documents.
- According to the file, Istame also signed a contract with an NGO called Iason, but the documentation does not make it clear where this organisation was based.
- When it came to the program’s accounts, it listed five different categories of expenses which were all broadly similar, such as printing and stationary. Thus, the budget provided for 12,500 Euros for "Accessories and supplies", 12,000 Euros for “Routine costs”, about 9,000 Euros for “Other costs”, 17,893 Euros for “Unexpected costs” and 37,575 Euros for the “NGO’s operating and administrative expenses".
- A further 8,713 Euros was budgeted for “Services”, such as legal advice, drafting costs, IT and accounting work. For the latter two services, there are no contracts to show where that money went.
- A Georgian invoice for 2,250 Euros for catering services was not signed by the person who received the money.
- Although 259,000 Euros was purportedly to be spent on labour costs, the file contains no evidence that staff contracts were signed. Payslips were mostly unsigned by their recipients.
New buildingIf any Hellenic Aid money was spent on Georgia's parliament, it's no longer used for that purpose. In 2009, construction began on a new building to house the Georgian parliament. The huge glass domed structure, located in the second city of Kutaisi, was inaugurated in 2012. Some reports said the bill for the controversial building and associated costs came to around USD 200 million.
Eleftherotypia, EnetEnglish
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