Tsipras's timely question to the prime minister about the «PPC golden boys» parties"

Urgent question to the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, addresses the leader of the official opposition, Alexis Tsipras, under the title «Provocative party of the “golden boys” of the Public Power Corporation", with exorbitant bonuses and allegations of stock manipulation, at a time when the company's energy policy is plunging citizens into poverty and the country into energy insecurity.».

Mr. Tsipras calls on Mr. Mitsotakis to inform Parliament if «the government approves the party squandering public money on the part of the PPC management by purchasing, with taxpayers» money, shares worth €16,000,000 and giving them to themselves as a gift, at a time when households and businesses are unable to pay exorbitant electricity bills. He also calls on him to respond to «what he intends to do to investigate allegations that the PPC management is involved in speculative games to manipulate PPC shares on the stock exchange, by exploiting key inside information about the government's decision to proceed with a share capital increase for the company.».

As the president of SYRIZA specifically states, «the New Democracy government, as soon as it took power in July 2019, began implementation of an unprecedented plan to convert the Public Power Corporation into a private company whose sole policy and priority is profitability, the rise of its shares on the stock exchange and the excessive remuneration of its executives, but at the expense of households and the country's productive forces. This is now recognized by the whole of Greek society, which is experiencing the consequences of these choices in the form of excessive increases in electricity bills and the lack of a plan for the country to deal with the energy crisis.

The plan, as Mr. Tsipras notes, began in September 2019 when, under the pretext of rescuing the Public Power Corporation (PPC), the then political leadership of the Ministry of Environment and Energy proceeded to increase the company's tariffs, already burdening consumers with approximately €500 million. Furthermore, for most of 2020, when fuel prices (oil, natural gas) had collapsed due to prolonged lockdowns, PPC chose to sell electricity at up to four times the price it purchased as a net buyer. As the president of SYRIZA points out, in April 2020, it sold electricity at €110 per megawatt hour, while it purchased it at €28.

According to Mr. Tsipras, this happened while, as early as November 2019, Law 4643/2019 «DEI was transformed into a convenience store for “blue boys”, with provocatively high salaries, since Mr. Hatzidakis's liberation from the “straitjacket of the public sector,” as he put it at the time, led to abolition of transparency in recruitment at the Public Power Corporation, in abolition of collective agreements, as well as in removal of the cap on executive pay, who also acquired the ability to own luxury cars. In addition, management positions multiplied, without any need or practical benefit (managers without subordinates), and dizzying bonuses were introduced... The seven (7) positions of General Managers that existed in 2019 became fifteen (15). The New Democracy government took over a company with 60 assistant General Managers and turned them into 250.

The remuneration of the current president and CEO of PPC, C. Stassi, reached a level six times higher than that of his predecessor, M. Panagiotakis, who had been appointed by the government of SYRIZA, as Mr. Tsipras points out, who emphasizes that his annual salary with bonuses amounts to €360,000, while the total administrative costs of the PPC group have skyrocketed.

«In 2018, under SYRIZA, the remuneration of the Group's management (Board of Directors, Chairman, members of the Board of Directors and Directors, General Managers) amounted to €1,549,000, while in 2021, remuneration reached €5,715,000, i.e. a 269% increase! The exorbitant salaries of the “blue boys” is the reward that the government has reserved for them for the fact that have turned the public good of electricity into a luxury good for citizens, for having “succeeded” in executing the government's will to hand over the majority of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) to private individuals through a share capital increase, and for having thus “They ultimately succeeded in causing the Public Power Corporation to lose its long-standing social and developmental role.”, says the president of SYRIZA, adding: «As if all this were not enough, after the emergence of unexplained transactions that were found to have been carried out before the announcement of the PPC share capital increase, the Capital Market Commission intervened to check for transactions that may have been carried out with the advantage of inside information prior to the announcement of the Share Capital Increase.».

«In close cooperation with Mr. Mitsotakis, The Stassi administration proceeded with the devaluation and, in effect, the closure of the PPC's lignite-fired power plants., whose operation could have reduced electricity prices and strengthened the adequacy of our energy system, especially after the start of the war in Ukraine, hiding behind the communicative announcement of de-lignification,» notes Mr. Tsipras, adding that «Mr. Mitsotakis's “Public” Electricity Company has now lost its social and developmental role and, instead of operating for the benefit of Greek society and the economy, it operates opportunistically, with the sole aim of securing high share prices on the stock exchange and high bonuses for the blue boys. At exactly the same time, according to press reports, the President and CEO of PPC himself, Mr. Stassis, appears to be building a pharaonic house on an Aegean island, but also, together with other executives of the company, to be receiving as an additional bonus 1,856,000 PPC shares, with a total value of over €16,000,000.

«Faced with the wave of quadruple and quintuple charges from the implementation of adjustment clause, any discount, which in any case comes from money paid by Greek society and the Greek economy as a whole, is a mere drop in the ocean. In reality Mr. Mitsotakis and the blue kids' DEI is part of an oligopoly in the wholesale electricity market., actively participating in the formation of high prices in the pre-day market that lead to the bankruptcy of households, professionals, and businesses,» emphasizes the president of the parliamentary opposition.