Target slipping away
According to data sent last week by the Greek statistical service to Eurostat in Brussels, the Socialist government of George Papandreou has so far failed to reduce the deficit, which has been one of its principal objectives.
One of the main reasons for this failure is that the administration has not yet dared to touch the country?s dysfunctional and heavily indebted public utilities whose administrations are behaving as if there was no economic crisis in Greece.
In fact, high-ranking officials serving in some of these public utilities, better known in this country as DEKO, have reacted in a rather provocative fashion by refusing to meet government requests and provide information on the salaries of their employees.
It?s high time the government put an end to such phenomena. The least it can do is do away with officials who do not cooperate, unless of course it is afraid of reactions from inside PASOK or political pressure from the unions.
