MARCH 2012: Siemens pays Greece 170m euros for bribery crimes
APRIL 2012: Siemens wins 41m euro Athens metro project
MINISTER VORIDIS STEERS THE SLEAZY QUID PRO QUO
Former Nazi Makis Voridis….brokered Siemens deal
The Greek people will never, ever have a
straight and above-board political system until all the current mob have
been thrown out.This is the conclusion many observers have now reached:
and allied to that conclusion is the blatant amorality of a Brussels
elite that not only has no interest in throwing them out: it would
rather deal with corrupt fascists….just so long as they keep saying yes
to the madness.
1. There was much wrangling during 2011
between Athens and Siemens about how much compensatiom they should pay
for three decades of bribing Greek officials. Evangelo Venizelos was
personally involved in the negotiation, and keen to get it settled: he
had almost certainly been one of the bribees. But things were getting
stuck.
2. November 2011: enter Makis Voridis, new
recruit to New Democracy (having ratted on his former fascist colleagues
in LAOS) who gets the Transport portfolio…in return for sticking with
Papademos on the bailout terms. Voridis is a big wheel in the area
surrounding Athens, known as Attica. He’s particularly friendly with the
taxi drivers there, who are basically a glorified mafia. So the
Transport portfolio offers him all kinds of ‘opportunities’.
3. At the turn of the year, a deal is done.
Voridis has a metro contract in the pipeline: if Siemens accept what
their lawyers tell them are onerous compensation terms of 170m euros,
Voridis will award them the Metro project of 41m euros.
4. Just three weeks later, Makis Voridis is foolish (or brazen) enough to tell the Jan 13 issue of Greek Reporter
that ‘ratification of a major contract with the German multinational
Siemens for a signalling system along the extensions of the metro would
be discussed in Parliament next week, followed by its signature for the
completion of the work.’The tender is supposed to be still open. No other bidders are involved.
5. But by now, his taxi driver friends are upset: subway transport is bad for business. Fear not, the Minister says, I will look after you.
6. This is what I posted at The Slog on March 10th this year:
‘Earlier this week, the German company
Siemens agreed to pay 170 million euros compensation and create 700 new
jobs in Greece in order to avoid a long-running bribery scandal going to
Court. That’s a big price to pay, so the mind boggles at just how
smelly the whole process must’ve been. Personally negotiating the
compensation was – guess who? – Evangelos Venizelos. The bribery
concerned bungs that Siemens gave to Greek politicians and senior civil
servants over several decades to secure public contracts…’
But it appears that Voridis’s contribution finally broke the deadlock. Now for the taxi-drivers.
7. On 23rd March – just as Greece becomes legally insolvent
completes the bond-swap, Makis Voridis finds himself embroiled in a row
with a fellow Papademos Minister, Yiannis Ragousis (PASOK). Himself a
former Transportation Minister, Ragousis argues that the proposed
Voridis taxi reforms protect the interests of taxi owners in Athens –
who had already strongly reacted against more cab licences in the Greek
capital. Ragousis, you see, has been tipped off about Makis’s little
plan. But the bill passes.
Originally designed to ‘liberalise’ taxi
licence ownership, the Voridis Bill effectively blocks any extension of
it. Breathtaking hypocrisy….but now everyone’s happy.
8. Yesterday, April 11th 2012, Handelsblatt
readers wake up to discover that Siemens will recoup 25% of the fine in
2013 alone…having been awarded the contract to extend the Athens
subway.
On the same day,
former Greek Defence Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos was arrested in
connection with the purchase of German submarines. He is accused of
accepting bribes in the Greek purchase of four submarines worth €2.85
billion in 2000. Siemens was also a major supplier at the time. But it
gets worse.
Our lad Makis Voridis has a bit of a chequered past. That is, he once followed not so much a chequered flag, as a swastika.
As a student, Voridis was known as ‘Hammer’
on accout of his penchant for using one to beat out the brains of
left-wing students opposed to the Greek Colonels regime. Makis was,
naturally, an enthusiastic supporter of it.
In 1994 – his time as a Leftie-bashing
student over – he helped found the The Hellenic Front. In 2004’s
elections, the HF formed a bloc with the neo-Nazi “Front Party” headed
by Greece’s most notorious Holocaust denier, Konstantinos Plevis. His
rambling volume, “Jews: The Whole Truth,” praised Hitler, and called for
the extermination of any Jews sein geliebter Fuhrer might have
missed. Plevis was charged and found guilty of “inciting racial hatred”
in 2007, but his sentence was overturned on appeal in 2009. He appears
to have known all the right people.
By that time, Makis “Hammer” Voridis had
furthered his political career, merging the Hellenic Front Party into
the far-right LAOS party, an umbrella party for all sorts of neo-Nazi
and nutcase political organizations. That’s how he got to be Transport
Minister – once Germany decided against the bailout referendum on behalf
of the Greek electorate.
Doesn’t this all make you so proud to be part of the European Project? Well hang about, there’s yet more.
70% of the Metro project is being financed by Brussels.
With our money. For a country in a depression and facing cuts in every
service known to man. From a company once described by a Munich judge as
‘probably the most corrupt company in German history’. Who were chosen
by a corrupt former fascist upstart following a sleazy deal involving
Troika support and the Athenian taxi mafia.
I’m going to go for a walk now in what’s
left of Britain’s green and pleasant land…before Cameron and his
developer chums tarmac it over in return for a £3.6m Conservative Party bribe contribution. For company, I’m going to have my 100% ethical wife, and three terriers. I’ll feel better when I get back.
Mark my words: we are on the way to becoming
Greece. The whole f**king world is on the way to becoming Greece. But
the poor electors of Greece are the ones living under this Greek
coalition. A coalition that is nothing more than a turd under the
Brussels jackboot.
Related: The psi can of worms
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