ΑΡΘΡΟ-ΚΟΛΑΦΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥΣ NEW YORK TIMES
Με τα μελανότερα χρώματα περιγράφουν οι New York Times την κατάσταση στο ελληνικό δημόσιο, κάνοντας λόγο για εκτεταμένη διαφθορά, κατασπατάληση του δημόσιου χρήματος και κομματικούς στρατούς.
Συγκεκριμένα, το άρθρο της αμερικάνικης εφημερίδας (και μάλιστα πρωτοσέλιδο) κάνει εκτεταμένη αναφορά στο πως γίνονται οι προσλήψεις συμβούλων "από το παράθυρο" στα γραφεία των αξιωματούχων και πως το χρήμα ξοδεύεται σε ανούσιες αγορές. Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα, οι κουρτίνες διευθυντή που σύμφωνα...
με τους Times κόστισαν 38.000 δολάρια.
Στο στόχαστρο της εφημερίδας μπαίνουν και οι υπάλληλοι της Βουλής που απολαμβάνουν ιδιαίτερης μεταχείρισης σε σχέση με τους υπόλοιπους δημοσίους υπαλλήλους, ενώ είναι και υπεράριθμοι. Η αρθρογράφος φτάνει στο σημείο να υποστηρίζει ότι σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις οι υπάλληλοι είναι τόσοι πολλοί που δεν έχουν ούτε θέση να κάτσουν!
Ιδιαίτερη αναφορά κάνει η εφημερίδα στις συνεχείς απεργίες και κινητοποιήσεις των δημοσίων υπαλλήλων, και τονίζει πως ενώ έχουν γίνει περικοπές μισθών, δεν έχει γίνει καμία απόλυση που θα μείωνε το δημόσιο.
Χαρακτηριστικά αναφέρεται ότι υπάρχουν περίπου 700.000 υπάλληλοι και άλλοι 80.000 σε κρατικές εταιρίες, όταν τριάντα χρόνια πριν ο αριθμός τους μόλις έφτανε το ένα τρίτο. Το δημοσίευμα καταλήγει ότι ο περιορισμός του δημόσιου τομέα δεν είναι εύκολη υπόθεση αφού οι υπάλληλοι αντιδρούν κάνοντας λευκή απεργία σε κάθε αλλαγή που επιχειρεί η κυβέρνηση.
Από iefimerida
Διαβάστε το πλήρες άρθρο των New York Times
Bureaucracy in Greece Defies Efforts to Cut It
Police officers, firefighters and coast guard officers protested austerity measures in Athens on Monday.
By SUZANNE DALEY
ATHENS — Stories of eye-popping waste and abuse of power among Greece’s bureaucrats are legion, including officials who hire their wives, and managers who submit $38,000 bills for office curtains.
The work force in Greece’s Parliament is so bloated, according to a local press investigation, that some employees do not even bother to come to work because there are not enough places for all of them to sit.
But as Europe looks for any sign of hope that Greece is on the road to reform, there are growing concerns about its ability — and willingness — to trim its payroll, a crucial element in bringing expenses under control enough to win continued international financing.
This week, the government’s resolve will be tested once again. Greece’s two major umbrella unions have called for a rare 48-hour general strike, and several critical austerity measures are coming up for votes in Parliament, including one that would cut 30,000 public-sector jobs.
Some experts believe that Greece could reap significant savings by reducing its bureaucracy, which employs one out of five workers in the country and by some estimates could be trimmed by as much as a third without materially affecting services. But though salaries have been cut, the government has yet to lay off anyone.
The main reason is also one of the very reasons that Greece got into trouble in the first place: The government is in many ways an army of patronage appointments built up over decades. When election time rolls around, state workers become campaign workers, and their reach is enormous. There are so many of them that almost every family has one.
This puts the Socialist prime minister, George A. Papandreou, or any other Greek leader, in a tough spot: There can be little upside to cutting jobs precisely when the government most needs support for unpopular budget-cutting actions.
“There is a political cost to these reforms,” said Nickolaos G. Travlos, an economist at the Alba Graduate Business School in Athens. “These workers are opinion leaders in their communities. And they are busy blaming the government, especially a Socialist government that is supposed to protect them.”
They are also well organized. This week’s general strike follows weeks of smaller strikes, rallies, sit-ins and a blockade of the Athens landfill that has left piles of garbage rotting in the streets. When auditors from the “troika” — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission — arrived last month at the Finance Ministry, workers blocked their entry.
In four days of tense negotiations, the auditors pushed hard for cutting the bureaucracy. Still, the plan to cut 30,000 jobs is modest by any measure. It amounts to about 4 percent of the public work force and would affect mostly people close to retirement. They would get a soft landing, too: 60 percent of their pay for a year while they remain in a “reserve” pool. After that, those who did not retire or find another job in the administration would be laid off.
The government has about 700,000 employees and 80,000 more who work for government-owned entities like the power company. Thirty years ago, experts say, the public sector was about one-third that size. (Until a census was carried out last year, however, government officials admitted they did not really know how many employees they had.)
Even if the new plan passes, it may yet run into legal challenges. Greece’s Constitution grants its public servants lifetime tenure, a situation that may go a long way toward explaining their indifferent attitude toward getting things done or switching to efficient practices.
Some ministries still have employees whose sole job is to record the arrival of documents in a ledger. “It’s crazy,” said Nikos Hlepas, an expert on public administration at the University of Athens. “That’s their whole job even though today we have e-mail.”
But taking action against public sector workers can be costly, experts point out. For instance, many suspect that tax collectors, vital to the government’s efforts to raise more revenues, have been on a work slowdown. The collectors, who like all public servants were hit with salary cuts, completed fewer audits this year than last year.
The head of the tax collectors’ union, Yiannis Grivas, said the problems were due to the introduction of a new computer system. But Mr. Grivas did not hesitate to warn that there would be a slowdown and more strikes if there were layoffs.
“If they do that, there will be repercussions,” he said. “There is always the human element.”
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