“We are all grieving and we have an obligation to find out the truth,” Michalis Chrysochoidis, who served as transport minister for 18 months from the second half of 2013 to 2015, said in an initial statement. convention 717 in the Committee on Institutions and Transparency.

Mr. Chrysochoidis noted that “since 2010, working groups have been created at ERGOSE in order to record the current state of signaling and telecontrol, as well as the electrification of the railway. In particular, two ERGOSE expert groups were established in 2010. In 2011 they presented their findings and in the same year an ERGOSE working group was established to prepare tender documents for a project related to the restructuring and modernization of the signaling and remote control system. In 2012, ERGOSE prepared tender documents and submitted them for comments to OSE, which was the managing line, and approved them. This was followed by the approval of the feasibility of the project by the relevant Transport Authority and the relevant EU Directorate, with the simultaneous approval of the financing of the project by the Cohesion Fund. The project has been approved for feasibility by all relevant national and European authorities and was put out for tender in 2014 with a budget of €52,753,300 net of modifications and VAT.”

“In the subsequent tender, the candidate with the lowest offer was selected as the contractor, and after the discount, the project amount was 41,297,147 euros without modifications and VAT. Parliament was then informed and the Accounts Chamber conducted a legality check, which approved the contract. So, at the end of September 2014, ERGOSE management signed a contract for the restructuring and modernization of the signaling and remote control system of the Athens-Thessaloniki-Promachonas axis. The implementation period was 2 years, i.е. handover at the end of September 2016. The first task of the contractor, according to the contract and special assignments, was to make a detailed accounting of the existing network, equipment, so that the layout would then be possible to restructure and modernize the network,” he added.

Mr. Chrysochoidis emphasized that “the project was absolutely necessary because, in the midst of the memorandums and the crisis, Greece, in cooperation with the EU, decided to modernize the network from Rio to Promakhona.” According to him, “the rail network system was known to sabotage the systems, creating serious safety and operational problems that needed to be addressed. To do this, OSE and ERGOSE decided to carry out work on network security systems as quickly as possible. The project needed to be completed as soon as possible.”

Old alarm systems are clearly not certified

The former minister explained that “the redeployment means that we have many different systems on the line from different suppliers, some of which have failed either due to damage or theft of materials that must be put back into service and in a single operations. “Modernization means that after their decommissioning, the contractor will have to take them out of service and operate them at a safe level in accordance with European standards and directives. The old alarm systems were clearly not certified according to the requirements of the most up-to-date EU regulations.” Remote control, he says, “is the visualization and remote control of operational and safety systems.”

Mr. Chrysochoidis noted that “In January 2015, the new government of SYRIZA-ANEL committed itself to fulfill the contract within the contractual terms, with a completion date of September 2016.” Then he entered into the minutes the chronology of all the events he mentioned above.

Source: RES-IPE