Despite the recent sale of a 33 percent stake in the gambling monopoly OPAP and the burgeoning sell-off of state gas companies, Greece’s privatization effort is still far behind plans insisted upon by international lenders.
Stelios Stauridis, President of TAIPED, the Hellenice Republic Asset Development Fund , said in a speech at the iForce Annual International Aviation conference that there are inadequacies in the state mechanism.
Stauridis stressed that “the public administration is governed by cretinism and bureaucracy,” and that the “state’s misery needs time to be overpassed … all the public immovable property suffers from legalization problems. Some of the buildings don’t have permits, others don’t have plans. The Olympic establishments do not have permits. The Peace and Friendship Stadium, commonly known by its acronym SEF, is an unauthorized building,” he said.
Despite bargain basement prices and a crushing economic crisis that makes Greece ripe for the taking, there has been less than enthusiastic interest in state entities, especially within the European Union itself, leading Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to go to China to look for investors recently.
Regarding regional airports, Stauridis underlined that “the bad condition in which they had fallen prevents potential investors, and demonstrates the difficulty in achieving the objectives for revenues from denationalizations.”
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