Greece Chasing No-Show Workers

Stepping up a campaign to root out disciplinary problems, troublemakers, people who’ve faked their credentials, and criminals still being paid, Greek Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he’s now going after people who rarely – or never – come to work and keep getting their salaries and haven’t been checked for absences.
He said he would double the number of disciplinary councils reviewing the cases of alleged wrongdoers in a bid to get rid of as many public workers as possible at the same time the government is planning to transfer or fire 25,000 workers over the next two years to reduce the public workforce as demanded by international lenders.
The Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB), which is putting up $325 billion in two bailouts, has insisted on harsh austerity measures in return, including getting rid of scores of thousands of workers who were hired over the last 40 years by alternating administrations of New Democracy Conservative and PASOK Socialists in return for votes and weren’t needed.
Mitsotakis said that the number of disciplinary councils had been reduced to 65 from 120 “to boost flexibility and speed” and added that a separate body had been assigned to examine cases relating to local authority workers.
As regards employees found to have been absent from their posts consistently and without good reason, he said authorities were planning to boost inspections in this area too. “There is a systematic effort to check whether the designated working hours in the public sector are being kept to,” he said.
Mitsotakis noted that inspections have already been carried out on staff at his own ministry, as well as the Interior, Culture and Tourism ministries and that “dozens more” checks were to follow.
Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said City Hall had decided to revoke the appointment of a civil servant to the municipal police force after it was found that he had secured the post using a forged university degree certificate and would try to recover all the wages paid for the last nine years.
Alternate Interior Minister Leonidas Grigorakos earlier called for the qualifications of all civil servants hired in the past 20 years to be rechecked for authenticity. That decision came after he said that inspections revealed that 10 percent of staff hired between 2004 to 2009 had submitted false education certificates.
Mitsotakis though said it was difficult to assess the number of staff who joined the civil service with fake certificates but didn’t s say why their alleged qualifications couldn’t be checked.