The municipality of Katerini is under investigation by the prosecutor's office

The municipality of Katerini is under investigation by the public prosecutor’s office following complaints from the main opposition, led by New Democracy MP for Pieria Savvas Chionidis, and the resignation of former majority city council member Nikos Tsiamperas, who added fuel to the fire with the allegations he reportedly made in a brief submitted to the Pieria Magistrate’s Court. Mayor Kostas Koukodimos, who had the support of Adonis Georgiadis and had been in the news for the high-profile Zachopoulos case when he was a New Democracy MP, requested the prosecutor’s intervention in January 2021. According to reports, the mayor and the deputy mayor have visited the prosecutor’s office, while the local community is demanding answers and awaiting further developments. «The allegations are baseless and unfounded,» Mr. Koukodimos told documentonews.gr, confident that the case will be dismissed.

It all began on September 27, 2020. During a press conference, S. Chionidis painted a grim picture of the widespread use of the practice of direct assignments, which—at the time—amounted to 2.5 million euros, while also criticizing the mayor, since he had claimed that «we will never award contracts directly.» He also pointed out something paradoxical regarding the recipients of these direct awards. «We all know what an I.K.E. is; it’s a legal form of business that can be established with as little as 1,000 euros. The paradox, then, is that such companies were established—companies with no prior experience—and suddenly found themselves receiving contracts from the municipality,» said the New Democracy MP and leader of the «Citizens in Action» faction, while citing the following examples:

«The first one took place on August 16, 2019, and was awarded the contract. And you’ll all remember that some information had been overlooked by municipal officials up to that point… But each of us knows that all the information we present is public information and comes from DIAVGEIA. There are also private limited companies (IKE) located on the fourth floor of a building in the central square, which handle the procurement of concrete, lighting fixtures, and of course, in this specific case, a contract was awarded on December 12 or 10, 2019, for plumbing work worth 18,000 euros, and by December 18, the work had been accepted and payment was made on December 18! {…} We were also struck by the fact that, based at the 1st kilometer of the Katerini-Thessaloniki National Road, there are two I.K.E. companies whose owners have Turkish names. »I don’t know who these people are… Are they Muslims from Thrace? Are they Turkish importers?”.

A Resignation with a… Bang

On January 8, 2021—four months after Chionidis’s allegations—the news the announcement that Nikos Tsiamberas, a city council member with Mr. Koukodimos’s faction and president of the Organization for Education, Culture, Sports, and Welfare (OPPAP), Nikos Tsiamperas, who essentially reinforced the points raised by the «Citizens in Action» faction. «With this letter, I hereby declare my resignation from the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors OPPAP of Katerini and my separation from the municipal majority group, the »Ekkinisi« coalition,“ Mr. Tsiamberas noted in his letter to the president of the City Council, citing the reasons that ”were the last straw»:

• Hiring relatives for salaried positions.
• Contracts awarded to relatives of members of management.
• Targeted direct contracts awarded to newly established companies (IKE) linked to individuals close to the mayor and members of the administration.
• A scheme to expand the majority based on the principles of «simple proportional representation» and «seats,» thereby distorting the will of our fellow citizens.
• Our municipality’s inclusion in the ESTIA II program (Migration) without knowing what is actually being planned, with whatever potentially disastrous consequences this may have in the immediate future. (Considering that our municipality is also a tourist destination.).
• Most cases of mismanagement and waste.
• A complete lack of vision and planning in the municipality, etc.

«Our allegations have been confirmed…»

This was followed by a statement from Mr. Chionidis’s political faction, which claimed that its allegations had been confirmed. «It took less than four months for everything we had mentioned in September 2020 at our coalition’s press conference to be confirmed. The Administration did not respond to the tobacco tin issue back then, nor has it done so now, even as its own officials are referring to the very matters that have come to light. Direct contracts for the Municipality of Katerini ALONE (excluding the agencies DEYAK, DIPAK, OPPAP, School Committees, etc.) have EXCEEDED 3,000,000 euros in the first 16 months of this administration,» emphasized the «Citizens in Action» faction, asking pointedly: «Is this what they meant when they said during the campaign that direct awards would be a thing of the past?».

According to Mr. Chionidis’s faction, the direct contracts—which both co-leaders had placed so much emphasis on during the campaign—are not only unprecedented in that they are being awarded to newly established (immediately after the elections) private limited companies, but also to companies that citizens find it nearly impossible to locate and shop at, or where they see one name on the store sign and another name on the receipt they receive from the store. It was striking that the announcement clearly mentioned contracts awarded to close relatives of deputy mayors. «Those who, during the pre-election campaign, led the fight against direct contract awards are now watching as contracts are awarded to first-degree relatives of current deputy mayors,» was the new aspect highlighted by the «Citizens in Action» faction.

The mayor requested the prosecutor's intervention

Amid a «flurry» of complaints and a polarized atmosphere, the «blue» mayor—who had the vice president of the New Democracy party by his side during the election campaign—is calling for the prosecutor’s intervention, describing the situation as «a treasure turned to coal.» Specifically, on January 21, 2021, Mr. Koukodimos visited the Katerini District Attorney’s Office, stating: «I filed a request with the prosecutor to summon Mr. Tsiamberas and have him provide evidence for his claims. The “treasure is just hot air,” since no evidence has been submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office or any other competent authority that audits the municipality’s finances. Essentially, we are revisiting issues from six months ago, when various false allegations regarding the squandering of taxpayers» money had once again come to light.”.

According to his statements, N. Tsiamberas made a slip of the tongue, bringing back into the spotlight what various websites and blogs had been writing six months ago. «That investigation has not proven a thing, and I am certain that this investigation will not prove anything either,» he emphasized, adding that the company accused by the municipal councilor in question was seeking evidence to take legal action against him.

The Tsiampera Memorandum

As part of the prosecutor’s investigation, the mayor’s former political ally and now bitter political enemy, N. Tsiamberas, filed a brief in June 2021 with the magistrate presiding over the case. According to well-informed sources, the independent city councilor claims that following the allegations made by S. Chionidis, he sought explanations from Mr. Koukodimos but received no «substantive response.» He also filed a request with the municipality’s Finance Department to obtain all of the suspicious contracts, with Mr. Koukodimos—according to prosecutorial sources—shouting and demanding during a phone call that the request be withdrawn. According to the information, in his memorandum, Mr. Tsiamberas reportedly criticizes the fact that, instead of a response, the municipality’s Financial Department sent him a link to access the Central Registry of Public Contracts.

«Subsequently, in light of the continued tacit refusal not only by the mayor himself, Mr. Koukodimos, but also by other relevant deputy mayors, such as Messrs. Ioannis Symeonidis and Dimitrios Morfakidis, to my reasonable questions regarding direct contracts awarded to newly established limited liability companies (IKE), namely, how they proceeded to award contracts worth thousands of euros to companies that not only lacked proven prior experience but whose managers were also unknown to the local community of Katerini until then, I tried to gather as much information as I could so that, first and foremost, I could understand what was really going on and, second, to uncover the extent of what, until that moment, had been unimaginable to me,» he reportedly notes in the memorandum, explaining the allegations he had included in his announcement of independence.

More specifically, it reportedly cites evidence of the hiring of brothers-in-law and children by high-ranking members of the majority, while also describing the direct award of 62,331.13 euros to a very close relative of a deputy mayor. The third reason for his resignation was the «targeted direct contracts awarded to newly established companies (IKE) linked to individuals close to the mayor and members of the administration.» According to reports, Mr. Tsiamberas is said to have described in detail five companies, which were established between August and December 2019, and received direct contracts totaling more than half a million euros. He then reportedly discusses a scheme to expand the majority through «simple proportional representation» and «seats» behind the scenes, as well as «numerous cases of mismanagement and waste» amounting to several thousand euros.

«Direct awards total 6.5 million»

In February 2022, Mr. Chionidis’s faction returned to the issue, estimating the value of direct contracts at 6.5 million euros. «We presented a few examples of unusual contracts, such as our municipality purchasing electrical supplies from an advertising agency in Athens. Furthermore, a small store selling hygiene products, located OUTSIDE Pieria, was supplying basketball hoops, soccer goals, and even asphalt mix. We also discovered that multifunction copiers were being purchased at three times the market price,» noted a new announcement, which continued as follows: «We observe, therefore, that the same pattern continues as the one we identified in a previous press conference, involving questionable contracts that have already exceeded 6,500.000 euros for the Municipality of Katerini ALONE, not including contracts awarded by DEYAK and other agencies of the Municipality of Katerini.».

«The allegations are baseless and unfounded»

documentonews.gr contacted the mayor of Katerini, who expressed confidence that the case would be closed, calling the allegations «baseless and unfounded.» «The case will be closed,» Mr. Koukodimos stated with confidence, adding that the file had been forwarded by the prosecutor’s office to the Ministry of the Interior for review. «All the contracts are lawful, and as for relatives, that aspect has nothing to do with the prosecutors,» he concluded.