In response to the relevant questions put to the opposition leaders by the Kythera.News in the context of its journalistic investigation, the municipal faction «Free Kythera» issued its first official statement on the case of the allegations of Syrmalis. The faction informs that it is legally examining the file before addressing the competent authorities and intervenes in detail on the issue of the sewerage project, raising objections to the budget, discounts and supervision. In addition, it put a number of specific questions to the municipal authority concerning the financial risk that the engineer's claims pose to the municipality, as well as the practices followed in the matter of his exclusion.

Below are the questions of Kythera.News and the letter with the answers and the views of the faction.

Questions to the municipal faction “Free Kythera”

You have been the recipients of the letter and evidence of Mr. George Syralis, which raise issues of transparency, legality and management of public money in the Municipality of Kythera.

Given your institutional status and the control you have to exercise, we ask you to inform citizens of the following:

Knowledge of the facts: Were you aware of the fact that critical infrastructure projects were included in funding programmes with studies by a private engineer, unpaid as he claims, for which claims of one million euros are being made? If so, what action have you taken in the past and what do you intend to do now?;
Institutional Initiatives: Based on the allegations of «manipulation of tenders» and malpractices in Recovery Fund projects, what are your immediate actions?;
- Will you request that the City Council convene a special Accountability meeting on this matter?;
- Will you request an expert opinion or audit by the competent authorities (Court of Auditors, National Transparency Authority, Technical Chamber of Greece)?;
Political Position: What is the official position of your political groups in the face of allegations of opaque and interlocking practices?;

The letter with the answers of “Free Kythera”

Mr Preca

The EC with the help of our legal advisors are examining with great care the letter we received from the surveyor Mr.Georgios Syrmalis and as soon as we have a complete picture of the case and acquire the data we are investigating we will take a public position and, if we consider that further investigation is required, according to our institutional role we will take the appropriate actions to notify the competent authorities. For the time being:

A. Regarding the project of the Sewerage of the Southern part of Kythera, what was written in the letter we received from Mr.Syralis did not fall in a storm. Because apart from our recent public criticism of the unprecedented suffering of all of us due to the sloppy execution of the project, we have from the very first days of the creation of the EC publicly expressed the position that the sewerage project of the southern part needs to be audited by the competent authorities, because of the following indications:

The documentation of the feasibility of the proposal. The rapid promotion, without social demand, of a huge project that appeared «out of nowhere» (it was not in any planning, not even in the pre-election programmes) but overcame - for unknown reasons, unknown how - projects that have been a social demand for decades.
The questioning of the feasibility of qualifying this instead of the mayor's peer, similar River-Pelagia sewerage project, was met with the unstable argument that «no new WWTP construction was foreseen under this financial instrument».
The questioning of the feasibility of accumulating all wastewater in Capsule, instead of disposing of it in more WWTPs (even for Mylopotamos) was answered with the unstable argument that the European Directive, which requires exactly the opposite, is no longer in force.
The realism of the proposal's budget. The budget of the project is reported to be more than double the average budget of similar projects in Greece, both in Euro/connection and in Euro/network length.
The discount offered by the contractor - just 1% on the tender budget - and understandably raises the question whether the contractor was perceived to have no competitor.
The questioning of the budget was answered with generalizations about the «hardness of the Kythira land» and not by matching the geometric projections of the study with detailed measurement/costing.
The supervision of the project is carried out by engineers indicated by the contractor and not, as would be expected, by the designer of the project (an engineer of national scope and unsurpassed experience who resides on the island).

B. On the contrary, it is a novel situation which requires very careful consideration the publication of a financial claim on behalf of Mr.Sirmalis (claim the existence - if not the extent - of which the mayor was aware as in the discussion on the legacies he referred to «Retrieved from on the part of the lessee of civil claims against the Municipality»). We believe that research on the subject should provide answers, apart from all the others, to the following important questions:

By not fulfilling any financial obligations to G.Syrmalis, systematically and repeatedly, the mayor mortgages the finances of the Municipality, burdening subsequent administrations with debts, legal costs and surcharges;
Does the Municipality of Kythera receive, systematically and repeatedly, very expensive specialized studies which the Technical Services do not have the technical competence to prepare and then fraudulently excludes the designers (in this case Mr.G.Syrmalis) from supervision in order for the contractors to be able to modify the scope at their own discretion, at the expense of the quality of the execution of the works?;
Is the Mayor acting in collusion with the president of Enchorios with mafia tactics, blackmailing G.Syrmalis with the threat of eviction so that he can carry out unpaid studies and activating the threat when he asks for the accruals or does he generally remain silent?;

Especially for the 3^ο question, it would be helpful to know if: a. there has indeed been a water cut to the municipal property where Mr.Syrmalis resides, b. there has indeed been a water cut to the Livadi field, and if c. there has indeed been no water cut to the verified arbitrary property that is allegedly being supplied with water in the name of the president of Enchoriu.