Graft threatens to dominate PM’s speech

NAT chief resigns in minister scandal

Premier Costas Karamanlis took a tour of the Thessaloniki metro worksite yesterday as he arrived in the city ahead of his speech at the international fair tonight. The annual speech is usually a chance for the PM to set out his policy goals but this year is likely to be dominated by the various corruption scandals that have afflicted the government.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis will take the podium at the Thessaloniki International Fair tonight, where he will deliver his annual policy speech, and attempt to distance himself from the scandals that have engulfed his party in recent weeks.

More controversy was created yesterday when the head of the Seamen’s Pension Fund (NAT), Panayiotis Panayiotopoulos resigned from his post after it was revealed that he had also been a manager at one of the real estate firms owned by Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis – who appointed him as president of NAT earlier this year.

Voulgarakis has come under fire for his involvement in the property companies, which were co-owned by his wife, at a time when he was an MP and then, since March 2004, a minister. He denies doing anything unethical or illegal, arguing that: “Whatever is legal is ethical.”

The minister says the companies were formed to manage the properties owned by his family but evidence yesterday suggested that one of the firms had also bought 700 square meters of office space in the Athens Tower for the official price of 865,898 euros. The actual cost is estimated to be much higher.

Voulgarakis sought protection against the flow of allegations from Parliament Speaker Dimitris Souflias, a former conservative minister, but was told Souflias could not intervene. This heightened speculation that Karamanlis could soon conduct a Cabinet reshuffle to rid himself of Voulgarakis and his baggage.

Culture Minister Michalis Liapis sparked the reshuffle rumors by saying that “the renewal of faces and ideas is a positive thing.”

To compound Karamanlis’s worries, the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) presented its own evidence yesterday, alleging that ND had tampered with ballots during a parliamentary vote earlier in the year.

PASOK had first made the claim at the beginning of the week but LAOS held a news conference yesterday to allege, with the assistance of video evidence, that a conservative MP had changed the ballot that was submitted by Tourism Minister Aris Spiliotopoulos.

The minister insisted that nothing untoward had taken place. “Nobody could have changed my vote and if something like this had happened, I would have been the first to report it.”

Karamanlis is expected to repeat tonight his intention to stop corruption but is unlikely to distance himself from specific members of his party.