Civil service sacks 524 employees for range of offenses
A total of 524 public servants have been dismissed from the civil service since the beginning of 2013 after being found guilty of a wide range of offenses, chiefly disciplinary misdeeds such as fraud and violation of duty, but also crimes including attempted manslaughter and trading in child pornography, according to official data released on Wednesday.
Of the 524 permanent dismissals, 304 were carried out this year, according to the Administrative Reform Ministry’s figures, which suggest that the rate at which disciplinary councils are hearing the cases of civil servants accused of violating the ethics code has intensified. Commenting, Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, “We will keep examining pending disciplinary cases and identifying those whose appointments to the public sector were achieved with underhand tactics.” He added that “the era of impunity in the state sector is well and truly over.” Sources at the ministry said the goal was to purge the civil service of a minority of unethical staff who have tarnished the image of Greece’s public administration.
In the majority of cases, dismissed employees had been found of guilty of securing their posts using false certificates. But there are also a significant number of cases involving graft, forgery and embezzlement. A handful of cases involve charges of attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, membership of a criminal organization, sexual harassment of a minor and trading in child pornography.
