Beyond the given obsessions that are still prevalent among a large section of government officials, there is a pervasive managerial and administrative inefficiency. Officers without any real experience in management, whose only attribute is a party membership, are called to manage important public organization in difficult circumstance and rather than improve the situation, they are creating even greater problems.

One such example is public transportation, where the interventions carried out in 2011 managed to not only reduce the deficits, but to also generate a minor surplus. The indifference of the political supervisor Mr. Spirtzis and the managerial inefficiencies of the administrators resulted in the latest increase of deficits. According to divs that were recently revealed, the deficit this year will be over 77 million euros. Half of the busses and trolleys are not even operational, monthly passes had dropped to half and it has been estimated that 2 out of 3 passengers do not pay a ticket.

This is a business that was tidied up after major efforts, which they managed to lead into a new financial crisis. At the initiative of the Transport Minister and by using the capital controls as an excuse, they urged passengers to not pay a ticket, which resulted in a sense of convenience and impunity among the people. Now are facing the consequences of ruining the conductors and encouraging many to not pay for tickets.

A similar scenario played out in the already troubled hospitals. They abolished the… unpopular 5-euro ticket in order to defend the so-called interests f the underprivileged and now we have reached the point where patients have to pay for gauzes and other medical material for the bare essentials. As a result, doctors, medical staff and patients are rising up, in hopes of those in charge taking notice, but no such luck.

Unfortunately for the ‘first left government’ the combination of populism and administrative inefficiency it turning out to be catastrophic. If they do not realize that you cannot govern with obsessions and political commissars, they will soon be faced with an angered society, as well as the employees and unionist whom they patronized up to now.

TO VIMA