A few days ago, we spotted a prospect KOLOTOUMBA regarding car benefits for members of the Greek Parliament. As our dedicated readers (all 5 of them) remember, reducing such fringe benefits is part of the Greek Government’s reform proposals:
Excerpt from the REFORM list of 20/2/15:
Reduce (a) the number of Ministries (from 16 to 10), (b) the number of ‘special advisors’ in general government; and (c) fringe benefits of ministers, Members of Parliament and top officials (e.g. cars, travel expenses, allowances)
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was furious on hearing that members of SYRIZA were considering holding on to their car benefits on the excuse that said cars were on a lease which was already signed for by the previous parliament body.
Alexis Tsipras (1/3/15): “I was very embarrassed to hear that there are several SYRIZA MPs that claim that they cannot afford to spare 300-400 Euros for cars on a 6,000-euro salary. We should not be like the others“
Outcome (10 March 2015): From the 149 SYRIZA MPs and the 13 ANEL MPs (the minority government coalition party), only three (3) SYRIZA MPs refused to exercise their right to have a parliamentary car.
It seems that 159 MPs are indeed “like the OTHERS“.
PS. To their credit, 5 MPs from the POTAMI party and 1 MP from the NEW DEMOCRACY party, also refused to receive a car.
The 9 MPs are:
From SYRIZA: Giorgos Dimaras, Eleni Psarea, Mustafa Mustafa, from NEW DEMOCRACY Giorgos Koumoutsakos and from the POTAMI Stavros Theodorakis (party leader), Stavroula Antonakou, Giorgos Amiras, Panagiotis Karkatsoulis and Antigoni Liberaki
KOLOTOUMBA.com 