Former Minister of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks and Member of Parliament for SYRIZA. Christos Spirtzes insisted – and in the replies he was asked to answer a series of questions put to him by deputies – that SYRIZA delivered GSMR system completedcharacterized the delays in signing the additional contract as justified, since all the procedures established by the competent audit authorities were followed, and argued that On the night of the tragedy, Tempe did not have a remote control system.

At the same time, he again attacked the ND government, attributing the disinformation attempt, while repeating that the two deputy ministers of infrastructure and transport, who he said had specific responsibilities, as well as the ERGOSE board of directors, should go to the Committee on Institutions.

“I feel an urgent need to inform about all aspects of what I did during the reign of SYRIZA,” he said and added that he almost disagreed with what the former minister of infrastructure and transport mentioned. Michalis Chrysochoidis.

When asked why the signing of an additional contract under the SYRIZA government was delayed, he characteristically said: “When you enter into an additional contract in a co-financed project and it is controlled by EDEL – and there was regular monitoring of it – you would sign it when it came to checking progress contract, but also additional? The EDL audit did not find anything reprehensible in either administrative or financial management. He finds that the amount of the contract absolutely suffers, and therefore there is a need for an additional one. We didn’t. However, when there is a need for more than 10% of the additional contract of the subject of the contract, you must follow the procedures established by the Administrative Authority, the EU, the Court of Auditors, everyone. Let’s see who’s speculating here. We followed the procedures we were supposed to follow. What else should we do? Say, we do not listen to the competent authorities and transparency?”

Responding to Mr. Gerapetritis, who questioned the percentage of completion of the project under the SYRIZA government, Mr. Spircis countered that “he refers to them without presenting any public documents.”

“Contract 717 is between contractors and ERGOSE. This is not between ERGOSE and OSE. He encourages cooking by numbers. It says to see how many stations have been delivered. There is no unit of measurement called a station,” he said, noting that “in the €41 million contract, the economic size of the stations, that is, the electronic devices that entered the rooms that end up in the stations, is 1.1 million.”

“There was a need for additional projects. The fact that this results in a downgrade is an upgrade of the project, the main part of which concerns field work and, secondarily, the equipment of the premises. The white paper states that the function of remote finance management is created at the equipment level of the closed room with complex electronic devices, and if one component does not work, then the entire device becomes inoperative. In 2020, all this will be mentioned in an official document,” Mr. Spirtzis said.

As the former Minister of Infrastructure stated, “there is no gap”, adding that “the ERGOSE administration could indeed have signed the contract from 08.01. go very wrong for the management of ERGOSE”.

When asked how many stationmasters the SYRIZA government has hired, Mr Spircis noted that “from 2015 to 2018, recruitment could not be done due to memorandums, and in order to prevent the railway from collapsing, he extended an invitation to those workers who 100 trained people, station chiefs, foremen and locksmiths, did not quit, but returned.

“No personnel have been laid off, transfers have been made to OSE and 35 recruitments have taken place. In addition to them, 200 workers were hired under individual contracts for security and cleaning,” he said, emphasizing that “in 2016, a network of thieves was caught, in which the heads of the OZP were also present, one of whom was the director, and they got into to jail, as usual.

“You don’t live by luck. It is no coincidence that not a single accident occurred during SYRIZA. Obviously, we had flaws in OSE. And, obviously, it is one thing to have the necessary 2,000 people and not have the 1,400 that we had, and another thing to have 730 people. That’s where it breaks down,” he said.

Mr. Spircis also answered a question about railway safety directives, pointing out that one is about functionality, the second is about the opening of the railway market, and the third is about the railway package, which has a deadline.

“I was a target minister for 4.5 years because I didn’t agree with privatization,” he said, claiming that the ND had “partyed at the OSE with illegal state aid that reached 16.5 billion euros.” TRENOSE owes 700 million euros to OSE. From 2007 to 2010 this debt arose. The European Commission said either you close it or sell it,” he stressed.

He defended the qualifications of the former President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Joanna Teparikou, emphasizing that she graduated from the University of Piraeus, has a master’s degree in international transportation and a doctorate.

“We have learned to take on political and personal responsibility, if any, but this does not correspond to the logic of propaganda, which puts us in the box. You will prove what you say. You will not throw mud at the fan with various trolls,” he stressed.

Mr. Spircis highlighted the issue of remote control when talking about government fireworks.

“When you have a remote at a station, it’s not a remote. It is next to the railway station, which can also stretch for several kilometers. The remote control does not work. When you say that the line was marked automatically by the head of the Larisa station, what can I tell you? The remote control was an added security barrier. Since July 29, 2019, remote control has ceased to exist,” he said.

He also said that the central control network on Karolou Street was disbanded in 2020 because ERGOSE moved and thus a large number of employees were lost, and he argued that if it existed, it would work in a unified way, and errors could have been revealed on the fateful night of the accident.

“We did everything we could for the projects and staffing of the railway network and its safety, within the narrow memorandums that we had, we did it and successfully managed to prevent the collapse of many parts of them. We promoted projects that set up and created another planet for both the safety of the railway and its capacity. As for 717, for which you called us, rest assured that when you complete projects worth one billion euros, you clearly did not neglect an important project,” he emphasized and concluded: “For my part, having the duty to inform the Greek people and above to all the 57 families of the victims for what ERGOSE did during the SYRIZA period, I hope you will call us Mr. President on all aspects of this tragic accident that shocked us all.”

MONKEY BEE