μετάφραση άρθρου του Basil Coronakis (New Europe, 15.12.2013). To πρωτότυπο άρθρο στα αγγλικά παρατίθεται παρακάτω.
Η επιτήδεια συνεργασία της Eurostat με Έλληνες κυβερνητικούς με σκοπό τη διόγκωση του δημοσίου ελλείμματος και χρέους της Ελλάδας για την περίοδο 2005-2009
Πώς οι λογαριασμοί του Ελληνικού Δημοσίου φουσκώθηκαν με δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ φανταστικών νοσοκομειακών τιμολογίων
Ας φανταστούμε έναν έμπορο που συνήθως παραγγέλνει το ετήσιο στόκ του από έναν προμηθευτή, ο οποίος προσθέτει στην τιμή ένα έξτρα ποσό, εξαιτίας του ότι πληρώνεται αργότερα από την ημερομηνία παράδοσης του εμπορεύματος. Το έξτρα ποσό περιλαμβάνει τόκο, λόγω καθυστέρησης καταβολής των οφειλομένων, καθώς και ασφάλιστροκινδύνου για την πιθανότητα μη καταβολήςολόκληρου του οφειλόμενου ποσού. Ας υποθέσουμε τώρα ότι, για κάποιο λόγο, τόσο ο έμπορος όσο και ο προμηθευτής συμφωνούν σε μια έκπτωση, ας πούμε 30%, επί του αρχικού τιμολογίου. Ωστόσο, παρά τις νόμιμες προσαρμογές των λογιστικών βιβλίων του εμπόρου και του προμηθευτή, που γίνονται όπως απαιτείται, όταν ελέγχονται τα λογιστικά βιβλία του εμπόρου από την Ανώτερη Ελεγκτική Αρχή, ο Προϊστάμενος Λογιστηρίου του εμπόρου, για προσωπικό του όφελος, αποκρύπτει την έκπτωση που πραγματοποιήθηκε και παρουσιάζει στον Έλεγχο την αρχική τιμή του τιμολογίου. Ας υποθέσουμε όμως τώρα ότι η πράξη του αυτή ανακαλύπτεται και επικρίνεται από την Ανώτερη Ελεγκτική Αρχή, η οποία όμως στη συνέχεια το ξανασκέφτεται, αλίμονο, γιατί βρίσκει ότι μπορεί να προκύπτουν κάποια «οφέλη» από την πράξη αυτήτου Προϊσταμένου Λογιστηρίου και έτσι είναι και οι δύο ευτυχισμένοι.
Οι ηθοποιοί της παραπάνω θεατρικής παράστασης είναι οι εξής: τα Ελληνικά δημόσια νοσοκομεία (ο έμπορος), οι φαρμακοβιομηχανίες (ο προμηθευτής), το Ελληνικό Υπουργείο Οικονομικών (ο Προϊστάμενος Λογιστηρίου του εμπόρου), και ηEurostat (η Ανώτερη Ελεγκτική Αρχή). Σε κάποιουςαναγνώστες, αυτό μπορεί να ακούγεται κάπως παρατραβηγμένο, ειδικά το ότι η Eurostat ενήργησε με τέτοια ραδιουργία, όπως η Ανώτερη Ελεγκτική Αρχή της παραπάνω ιστορίας. Όμως δυστυχώς έτσι έγινε.
Τα γεγονότα
Τον Οκτώβριο 2009, συνέπεσαν δύο γεγονότα που έπαιξαν καταλυτικό ρόλο στην ψευδή διόγκωση των νοσοκομειακών οφειλών: η αλλαγή κυβέρνησης στην Ελλάδα από τις βουλευτικές εκλογές και η αποστολή στην Eurostat των συσσωρευμένων νοσοκομειακών οφειλών 2005-2008 που εκκρεμούσαν. Είναι κοινή πρακτική το ότι οι περισσότερες νεοεκλεγείσες κυβερνήσεις ισχυρίζονται ότι κληρονόμησαν σωρεία προβλημάτων από την προηγούμενη κυβέρνηση, έτσι ώστε να μπορούν τον επόμενο χρόνο να παρουσιάσουν μια «βελτίωση» οφειλόμενη στις δικές τους πολιτικές. Η νοοτροπία αυτή οδήγησε αρχικά τηνέα ηγεσία του Υπουργείου Οικονομικών να αρπάξειτην ευκαιρία εκμεταλλευόμενη ένα συστημικόπρόβλημα του Ελληνικού δημόσιου τομέα, να το ονομάσουν «παραχάραξη των στοιχείων» και ναμανουβράρουν, ή «αναθεωρήσουν», τις συσσωρευμένες νοσοκομειακές οφειλέςκαταλήγοντας σε μια παράνομη υπερεκτίμηση του δημοσίου ελλείμματος και χρέους για την περίοδο 2005-2009. Το σοκαριστικό είναι ότι η υπερεκτίμηση αυτή δεν ήταν το αποτέλεσμα μεταφοράς ήδη υλοποιημένων δαπανών από άλλα έτη στα έτη 2005-2009, αλλά ήταν το αποτέλεσμα επιβάρυνσης όλων των ετών της θητείας της προηγούμενης κυβέρνησης με ποσά δισεκατομμυρίων ευρώ που ήταν φανταστικά. Ναι φανταστικά! Και το πιο σοκαριστικόείναι ότι η Eurostat συνεργάστηκε εν γνώσει της επ’ αυτού.
Αντίθετα με άλλες χώρες που αυτές οι πρακτικές, όταν αποκαλυφθούν, τιμωρούνται μέσα από θεσμοθετημένες πειθαρχικές διαδικασίες, στην Ελλάδα το παράνομο μανουβράρισμα των στοιχείων πήρε ανεξέλεγκτες διαστάσεις καταλήγοντας στην οικονομική καταστροφή που βιώνουμε σήμερα. Στην περίπτωση των νοσοκομειακών οφειλών, δύο κυρίως γεγονότα διευκόλυναν τη διαστρέβλωση των στοιχείων: το συστημικό πρόβλημα της ύπαρξης απαρχαιωμένων λογιστικών πλαισίων στον δημόσιο τομέα και οι μυστικές διαβουλεύσεις της νεοεκλεγείσας κυβέρνησης με ανώτατα στελέχη του ΔΝΤ, όπως αποκαλύφθηκε αργότερα, για να υπαχθεί η χώρα στο ΔΝΤ.
Όπως έχει ήδη λεχθεί από Έλληνες Οικονομικούς Στατιστικούς, κάτι δραματικά σοκαριστικό έπρεπε να συμβεί, για να αναλάβει το ΔΝΤ τον έλεγχο της χώρας. Η ιδέα μιας δημοσιονομικής κρίσης, σε συνδυασμό με την αναβίωση των αποκαλούμενωνGreek Statistics, ενεφανίσθη ως η τέλεια δικαιολογία για την εισβολή του ΔΝΤ στα Ευρωπαϊκά πράγματα. Έτσι, στατιστικές πρακτικές, σαν την ταχυδακτυλουργική επινόηση ψεύτικων, μη υπαρχόντων ελλειμμάτων που είχαν εξαχθεί από τις εκκρεμούσες νοσοκομειακές οφειλές της περιόδου 2005-2008, αποδείχτηκαν ως η πιο αντιπροσωπευτική στατιστική ραδιουργία των ετών 2009 και 2010.
Πληρωτέα νοσοκομείων: χρήμα που κανείς δεν πλήρωσε και κανείς δεν εισέπραξε
Στην Ελλάδα, όπως και στην υπόλοιπη ΕΕ, τα δημόσια νοσοκομεία παραδοσιακά προμηθεύονται φάρμακα και νοσοκομειακό υλικό από προμηθευτές που συνήθως πληρώνονται αργότερα από την ημερομηνία παράδοσης, λόγω των χρονοβόρων διαδικασιών αξιολόγησης του νομίμου των καταβολών από το Ελεγκτικό Συνέδριο. Σχετικά με την Ελλάδα, τον Σεπτέμβριο 2009, είχε συσσωρευτεί ένας τεράστιος αριθμός μη αξιολογημένων νοσοκομειακών οφειλών των ετών 2005-2008 και ταυτόχρονα η συνολική αξία αυτών των οφειλών δεν ήταν ακόμα γνωστή. Πρέπει να τονίσουμε ότι η Ελλάδα δεν είναι η μόνη χώρα που έχει τέτοιου είδους στατιστικά προβλήματα. Σύμφωνα με την Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση Φαρμακοβιομηχανιών (EFPIA),που περιλαμβάνει πολυεθνικές όπως οι Roche καιNovartis, το 2011, τα Ευρωπαϊκά κράτη χρωστούσαν € 12-15 δις στην φαρμακοβιομηχανία που αντιστοιχούσαν σε περισσότερα από ένα χρόνο.
Στις 2 Οκτωβρίου 2009, δηλαδή πριν τις εκλογές του Οκτωβρίου 2009, και μέσα στα πλαίσια των Ευρωπαϊκών διαδικασιών, η ΕΣΥΕ, που τώρα λέγεται ΕΛΣΤΑΤ, είχε στείλει στην Eurostat τους πίνακες ελλείμματος και χρέους. Αυτοίπεριελάμβαναν μια κατά προσέγγιση εκτίμηση τωνεκκρεμουσών νοσοκομειακών οφειλών ίση με € 2,3 δις που είχαν προκύψει από συνήθη έρευνα της ΕΣΥΕ. Η νέα κυβέρνηση φούσκωσε το ποσό των € 2,3 δις φτάνοντάς το στα €6,6 δις, όπως περιγράφεται στην Τεχνική Έκθεση του Υπουργείου Οικονομικών του Φεβρουαρίου 2010, βασιζόμενη σε έρευνα του Υπουργείου και όχι της ΕΣΥΕ. Έτσι, η ψευδής διόγκωση έφτανε στο εντυπωσιακό ποσό των € 5,4 δις. Επίσης, σύμφωνα με την ίδια Τεχνική Έκθεση, από τα € 6,6 δις, μόνο τα € 1,2 δις είχανεπικυρωθεί από το Ελεγκτικό Συνέδριο.
Και όχι μόνον έγινε αυτή η παρανομία, αλλά επίσης η νέα κυβέρνηση προσπάθησε να φορτώσει όλα αυτά τα επιπλέον € 5,4 δις νοσοκομειακών οφειλών σε έναμόνο έτος, δηλαδή στο 2008.
Στην αρχή, η Eurostat το απέρριψε αυτό γράφοντας:
“Στην ανακοίνωση της 21 Οκτωβρίου 2009, ένα ποσό € 2,5 δις προστέθηκε στο δημόσιο έλλειμμα του 2008 επί του ποσού των € 2,3 δις. Αυτό έγινε, σύμφωνα με τις Ελληνικές Αρχές, κάτω από απευθείας εντολή που δόθηκε από το Υπουργείο Οικονομικών,παρά το γεγονός ότι το πραγματικό ύψος των νοσοκομειακών οφειλών είναι ακόμα άγνωστο,ότι δεν υπήρχε δικαιολογία για την επίρριψη αυτού του ποσού μόνο στο 2008 και όχι σε προηγούμενα χρόνια επίσης και ότι η ΕΣΥΕ είχε εκφράσει την διαφωνία της προς το Γενικό Λογιστήριο του Κράτους και το Υπουργείο Οικονομικών.”
Αργότερα, τον Απρίλιο 2010, η Eurostatυπαναχώρησε στις παράνομες απαιτήσεις της νέας κυβέρνησης, προφανώς γιατί οι Γραφειοκράτες τηςEurostat ήταν τότε απασχολημένοι με το να προσπαθούν να βρουν τρόπους να φορτώσουν τους κυβερνητικούς λογαριασμούς της Ελλάδας με πρόσθετο παράνομο χρέος, όπως περιγράψαμε στο άρθρο μας “Οι παραβάσεις και πλημμέλειες τηςEurostat γιγαντώνουν το δημόσιο χρέος της Ελλάδας” (10-16 Νοεμβρίου 2013, σελ. 3).
Η υπαναχώρηση της Eurostat, τον Απρίλιο 2010,ενδίδοντας στις απαιτήσεις της νέας Ελληνικής κυβέρνησης, ήταν ξεκάθαρα αντίθετη με τους Ευρωπαϊκούς Κανονισμούς ΕΣΑ95 (βλ. ESA95 παρ.3.06, EC No. 2516/2000 άρθρο 2, Commission Reg.EC No. 995/2001) και αντίθετη με τον ΕυρωπαϊκόΚώδικα Ορθής Πρακτικής, κυρίως όσον αφορά τις αρχές της ανεξαρτησίας των στατιστικών μετρήσεων, της αντικειμενικότητας και της αξιοπιστίας των στατιστικών. Μία εντυπωσιακή παραβίαση του νόμου είναι ότι ένα μεγάλο μέρος των νοσοκομειακών οφειλών ΠΟΤΕ δεν καταβλήθηκε από την Ελληνική κυβέρνηση στις φαρμακευτικές εταιρείες. Δείτε γιατί:ενάμιση μήνα μετά την παράνομη διόγκωση του δημοσίου ελλείμματος, το Υπουργείο Οικονομικώνκάλεσε τις φαρμακευτικές εταιρείες και τους ζήτησε να δεχθούν μία έκπτωση 30% για την περίοδο 2005-2008.
Θέλουμε να επιστήσουμε την προσοχή σε δύο σημεία:
(1)
Όλες αυτές οι παράνομες στατιστικές διαδικασίεςκαι η ουσιαστική αδικία διαπράχθηκαν κατά των Ελλήνων πολιτών. Και, το πιο εκπληκτικό, διαπράχθηκαν κατ’ εξαίρεση ανάμεσα σε όλους τους άλλους Ευρωπαίους πολίτες.
(2)
Όλα όσα γράφουμε βασίζονται σε αποδεικτικά έγγραφα τόσο της Eurostat όσο και της ηγεσίας του Υπουργείου Οικονομικών εκείνης της εποχής.
Θα τελειώσουμε, όπως τελειώσαμε και στο προηγούμενο άρθρο μας. Δηλαδή, με την ίδια ερώτηση: Πώς είναι δυνατόν η ΕΕ να προχωρήσει μπροστά με ένα από τα μέλη του πυρήνα της να έχει αντιμετωπιστεί τόσο άδικα; Τα στατιστικά γεγονότα του 2009 απαιτούν μια σε βάθος, σοβαρή έρευνα και όχι παρεμβάσεις για μπλοκάρισμα της δικαστικής διαδικασίας στην Ελλάδα, όπως πράττει η Eurostat.Τα πράγματα πρέπει να τεθούν όπως έγιναν και η Ελλάδα να αποκατασταθεί. Το θέμα δεν είναι να αρνηθούμε το χρέος, αλλά το αναληθές και εγκληματικό μέρος του.
ΠΗΓΗ:---------------------
An astonishing revelation of unjustly fixed statistics
Let us think for a moment what would happen if, all of a sudden, the debt of the French transport system, covering buses, trams, the metro, the RER and OPTILE and the PAM network for disabled people and so on, were all transferred to the government’s accounts. After all, the French transport system is heavily subsidised by the state. Well, the disaster one can only imagine did not happen in France, and rightly so, but it did happen in Greece! Greeks and all other European citizens have the right to know what happened in Greece and why it happened.
All of us in Europe have agreed to comply with certain terms and conditions called European Regulations and the first to do so is, alas, the European Commission. Therefore, if public transport companies provide a service, because of a governmental or European socio-economic policy, then these public companies must be compensated or subsidised for losses incurred as a result of charging prices lower than what they would have otherwise charged. This compensation or subsidy does not entail the transfer of their debt to the country’s public debt. Well, an answer has not yet been provided by the European Commission as to why, after two decades of applying the common rules, Greece was suddenly in 2009-2010 treated differently from France or any other EU member state.
Looking into the complexity of the Eurostat criteria required to be fulfilled in order for a public company to be moved into the public sector, it seems that, in the case of Greece, the job was done with a hasty disregard for normal procedures. There is an apparent breach of European Law in the application of the so called 50% criterion defined as the institutional requirement that the revenue from sales of products or services of the public companies cover at least the 50% of their production cost. By not treating the above compensation as “revenue from sales” and at the same time lumping commercial depreciation of 100 years into the 2009 one-year expenses, Eurostat was able to justify the non-conformity of the public companies with the 50% criterion.
There are additional instances of breach of Law. Until 2009, Greece’s Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), together with Eurostat, had decided that the debt of public enterprises (public utility companies) could not be part of the public debt, because the government’s finance was in the form of shares thus increasing the property rights of the government as a shareholder on these companies. This is the common practice in the rest of the European countries, according to European Regulations agreed by all European partners.
In April 2010, an estimate of the 2009 deficit was published by Eurostat, which guaranteed that Greece’s final public deficit figure was not going to undergo further changes by more than 0.5% of GDP either downwards or upwards. On this basis, in May 2010, the Eurozone countries and the IMF supported Greece with €110bn of financial assistance. Six months later, Eurostat scrapped the 0.5% and raised the final public deficit by 2 percentage points, despite such major revisions being contrary to the commonly accepted Code of Statistical Practice.
Eurostat’s totally unexpected and unexplained action was based on the transfer of 17 public companies from the private to the public sector. The end result was a devastating false augmentation of the country’s public debt and deficit for the year 2009, which since then has been carried on and on forcing the country to stagger under an unjustified extra burden, which is souring its relations with the rest of Europe.
The issues were brought to the European Parliament and the European Commission, which have recently replied in writing by distorting the truth. Without referring to all the reported issues, their answer claims that the Greek law covering passenger transport companies is different from the European Law because the formula to calculate the amount of compensation is not based on the produced output of OASA (a holding company like the French STIF). This is profoundly untrue for three reasons: OASA is a holding company acting as an umbrella of the passenger transport companies in one of Greece’s regions, Attica, and as a consequence OASA does not have transport output of its own, as is the case exactly with STIF. Second, if one reads the Greek law with open, unprejudiced eyes, they will easily learn that the Greek formula is based on “the produced output and the passenger count”, contrary, alas, to what the European Commission reply asserts. Third, if the Greek law covering the public passenger transport companies was not in agreement with the corresponding European Regulations, then the Commission would have acted to secure harmonisation of provisions affecting competition in transport, according to the treaty establishing the European Economic Community. Such actions never occurred.
In its answers, given in fact under pressure from the European Parliament, the European Commission has resorted to other outrageous claims by even providing a small footnote reference reported in the 2013 Eurostat Manual, which, first, did not exist before February 2013, and, second, is misleadingly reported without the actual date. We also note the following fact: in 2010, Eurostat moved a number of public enterprises to the public sector, and, one year later, in 2011, Eurostat moved them again, back into the private sector. Thus, we observe that the Commission has recognised the unjust and felonious augmentation of Greece’s public debt, but they do not want to admit it. This is proved by an impressive sleight of hand: now you see it, now you don’t. The trick: immediately after the public sector was saddled with these companies’ debt, saving this way the German banks from bankruptcy, these same companies were moved again back into the private sector, where they belonged since 1993. Such actions are strictly forbidden by the European Regulations, which require that the initial transfer to the public sector might be justified only if it was judged that it had been in force for several years before and after its initial transfer.
Eurostat’s mistakes towards Greece bring to memory the spontaneity, with which Mr Joaquin Almunia, then Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs (now Commissioner for Competition), reacted on 21 October 2009, when he heard a revised forecast for Greece’s 2009 public deficit. Almunia said: “We want to know what has happened and why it has happened. Serious discrepancies will require an open and deep investigation”. The investigation never took place, but four years later, on October 21, Almunia said: “The EU’s problem is unaccountability”.
Saying he is right is not enough. By their unaccountable attitude toward fiscal statistics, the European Commission and Eurostat have led to the silencing of responsible voices at Greece’s ELSTAT, which is now left without its seven-member board and under one man’s authority – the same man who is under felony charges and who is supposed to manage both the country’s statistical system and its statistical office: a unique phenomenon in Europe. As described above, the 2009 false public deficit and debt have created a horrific whirlpool swallowing European taxpayer’s billions – whose destination is unknown – and a debt death-spiral of a country, which has been among the 10 first EC member states, with a proven hard-working population, who lost 7% of its population in the Second World War and who can hugely contribute to the construction of a more democratic European Union. The question is: How can the EU go on with one of its core members being so unjustly treated? The 2009 statistical events need an in-depth, serious investigation and not interventions to block Greece’s judicial procedures, as Eurostat is doing. Things have to be put right and Greece’s reinstatement must ensue. Public debt is not refused, what is refused is its untrue and felonious part.
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How Greek government’s accounts were lumped with billions of euros of fictional hospital invoices
Eurostat’s crafty ways of collaboration with governmental officials to swell Greece's public deficit and debt
15.12.2013 - 21:53
IImagine a retailer who
customarily orders her annual stock of merchandise from her supplier,
who overvalues his price because he is paid later than the date of
delivery. The overvaluation includes interest plus various costs
incurring to the supplier as a result of his late compensation,
including a risk premium for the possibility of not being paid in full.
Assume now that both the retailer and the supplier agree, for some
reason, that the face value of the initial invoice is discounted by,
say, 30%. In spite of the legally required adjustments actually made in
their respective accounts, none the less, when asked by his superior
Authority, the CEO of the retailer’s company, for some personal benefit,
reports the face value of the initial invoice by hiding the realized
discount. Imagine that this act is discovered and criticized by the
superior Authority, which, alas, is having second thoughts, and so finds
“beneficial” aspects in the CEO’s approach and they both live happily
ever after.
The actors of the above theatrical show: Greece’s public hospitals (the retailer), the pharmaceutical suppliers of Greece’s public hospitals (the supplier), Greece’s Ministry of Finance (the CEO), and Eurostat (the superior Authority). To some readers, this may sound somehow too far-fetched, especially for Eurostat to have acted like the crafty “superior Authority” above, but unfortunately this is what happened.
The facts
In October 2009, the simultaneous occurrence of two events played a catalytic role towards the fake augmentation of hospital liabilities: the change of Greece’s government through snap Parliamentary Elections and the dispatch of the 2005-2008 accumulated outstanding hospital liabilities to Eurostat. It is common in most countries that a newly elected government claims that they have inherited a pile of problems from the previous government, so that in the following year they could show an improvement, due to their own problem-solving policies. This mindset led initially the new top officials of the Ministry of Finance to politically grab the opportunity offered to them by a systemic problem of Greece’s public sector, to name it “data
counterfeiting”, and to manipulate, or “revise”, the accumulated
hospital liabilities, coming to an unlawful overestimation of the public
deficit and debt for the period 2005-2009. The striking thing is that
the overestimation was not the result of transferring already
materialized expenses to the year, or years, but it was the result of
loading the government’s accounts for all years of previous government’s
service with imaginary, yes imaginary, billions of euros! And an even
more striking thing is that Eurostat went consciously along with it!
Contrary to countries that have instituted disciplinary provisions to be implemented at the disclosure of such practices, in Greece the unlawful data
manipulation took uncontrollable dimensions leading to economic
catastrophe as experienced today. In the case of hospital liabilities,
two were the main factors, which facilitated the distortion of data:
Greece’s systemic problems of following a variety of old fashioned
accounting frameworks in the public sector and the secret discussions of
the newly elected government with IMF officials, in order to submit the
country into the IMF, the latter being revealed later.
As has already been stated by Greek Economic Statisticians, something dramatically shocking had to take place, if the IMF was to take control of the country. The idea of a fiscal crisis, in combination with a revival of the so called Greek Statistics, emerged as the perfect justification for the IMF intrusion in European affairs. Thus, statistical practices, like that of conjuring up a fake non-existent deficit out of the outstanding hospital liabilities of the 2005-2008 period, proved to be some of the most representative statistical trickery of that time, namely the years 2009 and 2010.
Payables to hospitals:money that nobody paid and nobody received
In Greece, as in the rest of the EU, public hospitals are traditionally provided with pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
by suppliers, who are customarily paid later than the date of delivery,
due to the required invoice validation procedures required by the Court
of Audit. Regarding Greece, in September 2009, a huge number of
non-validated hospital liabilities for the years 2005-2008 were
accumulated, while their total value was not yet known. We should
emphasize that Greece is not the only country with statistical problems
of this sort. According to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical
Industries and Associations (EFPIA), among which groups like Roche and
Novartis, in 2011, European states owed €12-15 billion, related to more
than one year, to the pharmaceutical industry.
On the 2nd of October 2009, that is before the October 2009 snap Parliamentary Elections, and within the usual Eurostat procedures, the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG), called ELSTAT (Hellenic Statistics Authority) since March 2010, had sent to Eurostat the deficit and debt notification tables. These included an approximate estimate of the outstanding hospital liabilities equal to €2.3 billion, based on the traditionally carried out hospital survey by the NSSG. The new government inflated the €2.3 billion by €4.3 billion making it equal to €6.6 billion as it is described in their “Technical Report on the Revision of Hospital Liabilities” (February 2010). Thus, the false augmentation of the public accounts was as high as the impressive amount of €5,4 billion. Moreover, according to the same Technical Report, out of the €6.6 billion, only the €1.2 billion had been validated by the Court of Audit.
And not only did this illegality take place, but also the new government tried to load all this extra €5.4 billion of hospital liabilities on only one year, namely the 2008. At first, Eurostat rejected this by writing:
“In the 21 October 2009 notification, an amount of €2.5 bn was added to the government deficit of 2008 on top of the €2.3 bn. This was done, according to the Greek authorities, under a direct instruction from the Ministry of Finance, in spite of the fact that the real total amount of hospital liabilities is still unknown, that there was no justification to impute this amount only in 2008 and not in previous years as well, and that the NSSG had voiced its dissent on the issue to the GAO (General Accounting Office) and to the MOF (Ministry of Finance).”
Later, in April 2010, Eurostat gave in to the new government’s unlawful demands, apparently because Eurostat’s Bureaucrats were then busy with trying to find ways to load Greece’s governmental accounts with additional illegal debt, as we have described in our article “Eurostat’s failures greatly increase the size of Greece’s debt” (issue 10-16 November 2013, page 3).
Eurostat’s April 2010 second thoughts about giving in to Greece’s new government’s demands regarding the statistical malpractice of hospital liabilities were clearly against the European Regulations ESA95 (see ESA95 par. 3.06, EC No. 2516/2000 article 2, Commission Reg. EC No. 995/2001) and against the European Statistics Code of Practice, especially regarding the principles of independence of statistical measurements, statistical objectivity and reliability. One impressive breach of Law is that a large part of hospital liabilities was NEVER paid to pharmaceutical suppliers by the Greek government. See why: One and a half months later than the illegal augmentation of the public deficit, the Ministry of Finance called the suppliers and asked them to accept a 30% discount for the period 2005-2008.
Two points we want to call attention to:
All these unlawful statistical procedures and essential injustice were incurred to the detriment of Greece’s citizens. And, astonishingly, as an exception to all other European-countries’ citizens.
All we write is based on evidential documents by both Eurostat and top Ministerial Officials of that time.
We will end up as we did in our previous article; that is with the same question: How can the EU go on with one of its core members being so unjustly treated? The 2009 statistical events need an in-depth and serious investigation and not interventions to block Greece’s judicial procedures, as Eurostat is doing. Things have to be put right and Greece’s reinstatement must ensue. Public debt is not refused, what is refused is its untrue and felonious part.
Source: NEW EUROPE, 15.12.2013
Διαβάστε επίσης σχετικά με το ίδιο θέμα: http://www.dikaiopolis.gr/2013/11/eurostat.html
,
including a risk premium for the possibility of not being paid in full.
Assume now that both the retailer and the supplier agree, for some
reason, that the face value of the initial invoice is discounted by,
say, 30%. In spite of the legally required adjustments actually made in
their respective accounts, none the less, when asked by his superior
Authority, the CEO of the retailer’s company, for some personal benefit,
reports the face value of the initial invoice by hiding the realized
discount. Imagine that this act is discovered and criticized by the
superior Authority, which, alas, is having second thoughts, and so finds
“beneficial” aspects in the CEO’s approach and they both live happily
ever after.The actors of the above theatrical show: Greece’s public hospitals (the retailer), the pharmaceutical suppliers of Greece’s public hospitals (the supplier), Greece’s Ministry of Finance (the CEO), and Eurostat (the superior Authority). To some readers, this may sound somehow too far-fetched, especially for Eurostat to have acted like the crafty “superior Authority” above, but unfortunately this is what happened.
The facts
In October 2009, the simultaneous occurrence of two events played a catalytic role towards the fake augmentation of hospital liabilities: the change of Greece’s government through snap Parliamentary Elections and the dispatch of the 2005-2008 accumulated outstanding hospital liabilities to Eurostat. It is common in most countries that a newly elected government claims that they have inherited a pile of problems from the previous government, so that in the following year they could show an improvement, due to their own problem-solving policies. This mindset led initially the new top officials of the Ministry of Finance to politically grab the opportunity offered to them by a systemic problem of Greece’s public sector, to name it “data
counterfeiting”, and to manipulate, or “revise”, the accumulated
hospital liabilities, coming to an unlawful overestimation of the public
deficit and debt for the period 2005-2009. The striking thing is that
the overestimation was not the result of transferring already
materialized expenses to the year, or years, but it was the result of
loading the government’s accounts for all years of previous government’s
service with imaginary, yes imaginary, billions of euros! And an even
more striking thing is that Eurostat went consciously along with it!Contrary to countries that have instituted disciplinary provisions to be implemented at the disclosure of such practices, in Greece the unlawful data
manipulation took uncontrollable dimensions leading to economic
catastrophe as experienced today. In the case of hospital liabilities,
two were the main factors, which facilitated the distortion of data:
Greece’s systemic problems of following a variety of old fashioned
accounting frameworks in the public sector and the secret discussions of
the newly elected government with IMF officials, in order to submit the
country into the IMF, the latter being revealed later.As has already been stated by Greek Economic Statisticians, something dramatically shocking had to take place, if the IMF was to take control of the country. The idea of a fiscal crisis, in combination with a revival of the so called Greek Statistics, emerged as the perfect justification for the IMF intrusion in European affairs. Thus, statistical practices, like that of conjuring up a fake non-existent deficit out of the outstanding hospital liabilities of the 2005-2008 period, proved to be some of the most representative statistical trickery of that time, namely the years 2009 and 2010.
Payables to hospitals:money that nobody paid and nobody received
In Greece, as in the rest of the EU, public hospitals are traditionally provided with pharmaceuticals and medical equipment
by suppliers, who are customarily paid later than the date of delivery,
due to the required invoice validation procedures required by the Court
of Audit. Regarding Greece, in September 2009, a huge number of
non-validated hospital liabilities for the years 2005-2008 were
accumulated, while their total value was not yet known. We should
emphasize that Greece is not the only country with statistical problems
of this sort. According to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical
Industries and Associations (EFPIA), among which groups like Roche and
Novartis, in 2011, European states owed €12-15 billion, related to more
than one year, to the pharmaceutical industry.On the 2nd of October 2009, that is before the October 2009 snap Parliamentary Elections, and within the usual Eurostat procedures, the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG), called ELSTAT (Hellenic Statistics Authority) since March 2010, had sent to Eurostat the deficit and debt notification tables. These included an approximate estimate of the outstanding hospital liabilities equal to €2.3 billion, based on the traditionally carried out hospital survey by the NSSG. The new government inflated the €2.3 billion by €4.3 billion making it equal to €6.6 billion as it is described in their “Technical Report on the Revision of Hospital Liabilities” (February 2010). Thus, the false augmentation of the public accounts was as high as the impressive amount of €5,4 billion. Moreover, according to the same Technical Report, out of the €6.6 billion, only the €1.2 billion had been validated by the Court of Audit.
And not only did this illegality take place, but also the new government tried to load all this extra €5.4 billion of hospital liabilities on only one year, namely the 2008. At first, Eurostat rejected this by writing:
“In the 21 October 2009 notification, an amount of €2.5 bn was added to the government deficit of 2008 on top of the €2.3 bn. This was done, according to the Greek authorities, under a direct instruction from the Ministry of Finance, in spite of the fact that the real total amount of hospital liabilities is still unknown, that there was no justification to impute this amount only in 2008 and not in previous years as well, and that the NSSG had voiced its dissent on the issue to the GAO (General Accounting Office) and to the MOF (Ministry of Finance).”
Later, in April 2010, Eurostat gave in to the new government’s unlawful demands, apparently because Eurostat’s Bureaucrats were then busy with trying to find ways to load Greece’s governmental accounts with additional illegal debt, as we have described in our article “Eurostat’s failures greatly increase the size of Greece’s debt” (issue 10-16 November 2013, page 3).
Eurostat’s April 2010 second thoughts about giving in to Greece’s new government’s demands regarding the statistical malpractice of hospital liabilities were clearly against the European Regulations ESA95 (see ESA95 par. 3.06, EC No. 2516/2000 article 2, Commission Reg. EC No. 995/2001) and against the European Statistics Code of Practice, especially regarding the principles of independence of statistical measurements, statistical objectivity and reliability. One impressive breach of Law is that a large part of hospital liabilities was NEVER paid to pharmaceutical suppliers by the Greek government. See why: One and a half months later than the illegal augmentation of the public deficit, the Ministry of Finance called the suppliers and asked them to accept a 30% discount for the period 2005-2008.
Two points we want to call attention to:
All these unlawful statistical procedures and essential injustice were incurred to the detriment of Greece’s citizens. And, astonishingly, as an exception to all other European-countries’ citizens.
All we write
is based on evidential documents by both Eurostat and top Ministerial Officials of that time.We will end up as we did in our previous article; that is with the same question: How can the EU go on with one of its core members being so unjustly treated? The 2009 statistical events need an in-depth and serious investigation and not interventions to block Greece’s judicial procedures, as Eurostat is doing. Things have to be put right and Greece’s reinstatement must ensue. Public debt is not refused, what is refused is its untrue and felonious part.
Source: NEW EUROPE, 15.12.2013
Διαβάστε επίσης σχετικά με το ίδιο θέμα: http://www.dikaiopolis.gr/2013/11/eurostat.html
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Η ιστοσελίδα μας δημιουργήθηκε το 2008.Δείτε τους συντελεστές και την ταυτότητα της προσπάθειας. Επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας εδώ .
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