On the occasion of public protest by Harhalakis against the management of ELPE With regard to the social program offering free heating oil from EKO, which appears to have lost momentum, and following the government's intervention in the management of the group last summer, we are republishing an article – opinion piece by Grigoris Stergioulas* and Spyros Michalakis** that was published in the Journalists' Newspaper in August 2021.
Entrepreneurship and a «professional» state
On October 13, 2020 (when everything was going well for the government), Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: «Entrepreneurship will be included as a subject in the expanded programs of the Ministry of Education so that children can become familiar with what it means to set up and run a business.».
In order to facilitate the government's work, we will request that the example of ELPE be included in the entrepreneurship curriculum. We are even offering an initial approach to what children need to learn in order to fully understand what entrepreneurship means, based on the actions of Mr. Mitsotakis' New Democracy party.
■ So, you take a company that in previous years had posted record profits, record production, hired hundreds of people, made a strong social impact, and was preparing for new investments based on a clear plan. The results for 2015-2018 are characteristic.
■ You dismiss, remove, and persecute anything that reminds you of the previous period (commonly referred to as «all Syriza members and those who collaborated with them») and replace it with your «own people.» Even advertising funds for the media are «rationalized» by reducing (or even completely abolishing) funds for «unfriendly media»...
■ You manage to turn ELPE around (see table above). In 2020, the Group (due to the pandemic, but worse than almost all other companies in the sector) recorded losses of €397 million, with a drop in production, but without «harm» shareholders (such as Mr. Latsis« Paneuropean), who received their dividends as normal, even though the company had to borrow money. The first half of 2021 also showed losses...
■ You are not making any progress with the (particularly promising) hydrocarbon exploration and production program. For two years, nothing significant has been done in this area. On the contrary, you are returning two «concessions» (in Arta-Preveza and northwestern Peloponnese) to the State.
■ You are essentially giving the management of the Group to the private major shareholder (Paneuropean, owned by Mr. Latsis). The representatives of the State on the Board of Directors of ELPE (on the instructions of their superiors) are voting in favor of selling off the State's right to appoint 7 of the 13 members of the Board of Directors! This could be considered a breach of trust against the State, since the right to control management is valued at least €106 million...
■ Finally, in mid-August, you dismiss two executives of the Group who were not «popular»... One is a well-known executive of SYRIZA and the other is an executive of KINAL, former president of the employees« union. The strange thing here is that in an article published by bankingnews (which mysteriously »disappeared" after two days – whose intervention was that, I wonder? mentioned the monitoring of the dismissed employee's emails and telephone calls, which is a matter of democracy and should perhaps be investigated by a prosecutor...
We believe that with all this, the student of the future will be able to fully understand what «entrepreneurship à la executive state» means, what «meritocracy» means, what «development» means, what «excellence» means, what it means to support the public interest and not bow your head.
But perhaps history has not yet been fully written...
* Executive Advisor, Hellenic Petroleum S.A.
** Former president and managing director of BP Greece S.A.
