Shooting down a suggestion from the country’s international lenders that the country’s lagging privatization program be put into the hands of a private, foreign agency to get it going, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras categorically ruled it out. That came after media reports of a possible transfer of the agency’s responsibilities to Europe.
The “(Privatisation fund) TAIPED (or HRADF) will remain in Greek hands,” Samaras told the Sunday edition of left-leaning daily Eleftherotypia.
The Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB) that is putting up $325 billion in two bailouts to prop up Greece’s bankrupt economy, is unhappy with the pace of sales of state enterprises that is far behind schedule and said an independent company could handle it better. Samaras nixed that right out of the box.
“I absolutely deny the possibility of transferring the fund abroad,” Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras also told the Sunday edition of the newspaper Ethnos. “The exploitation of Greek public property is carried out by TAIPED and the Greek government. This won’t change,” Stournaras said.
See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!
