Public Sector Finally Sacks 524 Employees For A Range of Offenses

Since the beginning of 2013, some 524 public servants have been dismissed from Greece's public sector after being found guilty of a wide range of offenses, such as fraud and violation of duty. Other crimes include attempted manslaughter and trading in child pornography.

According to official data released on Wednesday, of the 524 permanent dismissals, 304 were carried out in 2013, according to the Administrative Reform Ministry’s figures, which suggest that the rate at which disciplinary councils are hearing the cases of civil servants accused of violating the ethics code has intensified but obviously they are not doing enough.

Commenting , Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, “We will keep examining pending disciplinary cases and identifying those whose appointments to the public sector were achieved with underhand tactics.” He added that “the era of impunity in the state sector is well and truly over.”

Meanwhile, press reports are saying that the goal of the dismissals was to purge the civil service of a minority of unethical staff who have tarnished the image of Greece’s public administration.

In the majority of cases, dismissed employees had been found guilty of securing their posts using false certificates. But there are also a significant number of cases involving graft, forgery and embezzlement.

Moreover, a handful of cases involve charges of attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, membership of a criminal organization, sexual harassment of a minor and trading in child pornography.