Greece has suffered greatly from the rampant corruption in the dealings of state-owned companies, with crooked state suppliers and employees or greedy administrators having played a leading role in the collapse of the country’s economy.

Today, the government is being called upon to make crucial decisions regarding banks, privatizations and the future of numerous state-owned companies, and these decision must be reached with utmost transparency and on the basis of objective criteria.

If the reprehensible habits and methods of doing business of the past are allowed to prevail once more, this will spell catastrophe for the government, but also for the country as a whole. And this is not something that some of the powers at play behind organizations like the OPAP gaming company and Hellenic Railways, which have milked the state’s coffers dry, would necessarily lament.

It will take great determination for the government to deal with these companies, but above all they must also be dealt with transparently.