The EU government is developing a credibility problem: while it imposes draconian austerity measures on Greece and other EU countries recipients of bailout monies, they ignore the waste and fraud of the funds allocated to countries that are recipients of the bailout.
A Greek official in fact, reported cases in which well connected teachers teaching at a vocational institute were paid more than 600 Euro per hour, to the EU government, but the reports were completely ignored, at least for better part of a year.
The school in question, OEEK, or Organization for Vocation Education and Training, receives and distributes funds that are supposed to go for vocational training in Greece. but an audit of the schools uncovered cases of nepotism and graft that are gauging the bulk of the monies that have been set aside for such programs.
Most of the money that was taken illegally came from funds set aside by the EU for the training programs, which aim at bettering the chance of students to find employment in the economic wasteland that Greece has become.
In addition to being paid enormous amounts per hour, the teachers are also being paid for hours they did not teach, up to 225 per month, even for times when the same persons were actually abroad or on vacation.
Much of the scandal involves the son of a cabinet member, who was teaching a class on how to silver plate watches, In another instance, the wife of a politician was teaching classes on dentistry and geography, and more relatives of the institute's dean were also employed in the same fashion in the same institute.
The whistleblower in this case, had to actually keep reporting the case to get action from the EU administrators. It took more than six months just to have a meaningful response.
The case above, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. In a country where many people are starving, or are unable to obtain heating or even electricity, there are those who are getting princely salaries if they have the right connections.
So far, only a small percentage of the pillaged funds have been repaid. The rest, the whistleblower says, might never be recaptured, because the EU has no intention of cracking down on these abuses. He is also concerned that the reason for such lack of intervention is because the perpetrators of the graft are related to important politicians or figures, which makes the hopes of righting Greece's financial 'ship' even less realizable.
source : Spiegel int'l/ 10.20.13
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