“The government had begun the organization’s reconstruction process long before.”
Clear messages about the course of consolidation of OPECEPEbut also for the need for joint action towards smallpox, which he described as a matter of national importance, was sent by the Minister of Rural Development and Food Costas Tsiarasduring an interview with ERT’s Newsroom with George Siadima.
Mr. Tsiaras reiterated that Government had begun ‘long before’ the process of reconstitting the organizationbefore even the case file from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office arrives in Parliament. As he said, “it is an attempt to bring OPEKEPE to a new era of transparency” and a special team has already been set up with the Financial Police, AADE and Ministry officials, who controls “all so -called suspicious subsidies”.
The minister announced that “by the end of the month there will be results that will launch the return of all the money that some have managed to get illegally”, taking advantage of the “holes” of the system, and said that the transfer of the Organization to AADE would have a “different condition at the level of real controls”. He said that controls have actually caused delay in payments, but assured that “the payment of money to the beneficiaries will in no way be in danger.”
He specifically stated: “I understand that obligations create suffocating conditions for producers, but at the end of the day we will have an OPECEPE that will operate with complete transparency and justice. The real money, what every honest Greek producer is entitled to, will take it. “
Mr Tsiaras announced that “at the end of August – early September payments begin, with a very high frequency to relieve a large number of beneficiaries” and concluded with the characteristic phrase: “We have to cut the umbilical cord and there our own effort is focused. “
Regarding the smallpox, the minister emphasized that the eradication of the disease, as he said, requires “the complete cooperation of all – the farmers, the regions, the local government and of course the Ministry”. forerunner of exports and creates tremendous surplus value. ” Mr Tsiaras spoke of intensifying controls in collaboration with the relevant ministries and regions, while warning that observance of bio -security measures is everyone’s responsibility: “We must do everything to keep livestock farming in our country. This is the only goal. “
Finally, referring to the extensive fires, the minister announced that a meeting was held with the Ministry of Civil Protection and the Ministry of Finance to standardize procedures for rapid compensation of the affected. “It is a debt to the Greek state and the government’s obligation to do everything possible to relieve the people who have seen their lives change through the fires,” he noted, adding that “the powers have been cleared and the necessary steps are made to give as much as possible.”