- A “dance” of millions under the pretext of an emergency.
- Steep increase in spending from 2019 to 2023.
- How 50 million euros were distributed.
- The report from the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (IAPR) severely implicates the former regional governor.
By Vangelis Triantis
The Region of Attica’s expenditure on Civil Protection has sharply increased during the period of George Patoulis’ administration, according to revealing research by Data Journalists based on the official data of 984 contracts of the Region.
Specifically, from 2019 to October 2023, these expenditures amounted to 48,336 million euros, with half of this amount, i.e. 28,187 euros, being spent in just one year in 2022, recording an increase of 219% compared to 2021.
At the same time, during the days of Patoulis, a record was made of the expenditures of the Attica region related to contracts that were signed using the negotiated procedure without prior publication. Specifically, a research by Data Journalists shows that these expenditures amounted to approximately 132 million euros. However, negotiated contracts without prior publication are something which, according to the relevant legislation, are only carried out in cases of emergency. Something that does not seem to have been observed in the four years 2019 – 2023 in the Region.
It is noteworthy that a report from the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority (HSPPA), which pertained to 402 contracts in the Region for the period of January 2021 to July 2022, found that there were no emergency reasons to award these contracts through direct negotiation. But let’s take a closer look at the detailed findings from the Data Journalists’ research.
The 984 contracts are worth almost 50 million euros
![](https://www.datajournalists.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5878212.jpg)
(ΓΙΑΝΝΗΣ ΠΑΝΑΓΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ/EUROKINISSI)
The investigation focused on the civil protection contracts signed by the Attica region from the end of August 2017 to October 2023. This includes the two years when Rena Dourou was governor of Attica (from August 2017 to August 2019), as well as the entire four-year term of George Patoulis (from September 2019, when he officially took over, to October 2023).
These are 984 contracts such as, for example, “the provision of water-carrying vehicles and project machinery to assist the Fire Service, the provision of machinery to deal with flooding phenomena, the provision of machinery for various fires in Attica, to deal with bad weather, etc.” The contracts are posted on the Central Electronic Public Procurement Registry (KIMDIS).
The table published by Data Journalists includes the registration number of each contract in the Central Electronic Public Procurement Registry (KIMDIS), the date and time of posting, the start date, and the total cost excluding VAT.
The study of the data shows that the Attica Region’s expenditure on civil protection will skyrocket in the four years 2019 – 2023. More specifically, in 2017, the total cost of the contracts signed by the region amounted to 769,006 euros. The following year, in 2018, the cost rose to 4.373 million euros. The following year, G. Patoulis took over the leadership of the Attica Region. Elections were held in May 2019, while the Patoulis side took over the administration of the region in September of the same year. As can be seen, the expenditure for 2019 is reduced and amounts to 3.350 million euros. From then on, costs begin to soar. In 2020, the cost of civil protection contracts amounted to 4,068 million euros, almost the same as in 2018.
However, the following year, 2021, the cost of the contracts doubles to €8.827 million. An increase of 117%. That was not the only increase. The following year, the costs exceeded all the previous ones.
In particular, the cost of contracts signed amounted to €28.187 million, an increase of 220% compared to 2021. All the money spent by the Attica region between 2017 and 2021 was spent in a single year. In 2023, the amount spent decreased significantly. From 28.187 million euros in 2022, they reached 3.902 million euros in 2023.
See the table of contracts for the civil protection of the region of Attica
Tables: Electronic Register of Public Contracts (KIMDIS) (pdf)
A sharp increase in “emergency” contracts
One of the notable traits of the Patoulis administration is the significant rise in the number of contracts signed through negotiation without prior publication. These contracts were for the provision of services for addressing the aftermath of natural disasters like fires, floods, etc. Data Journalists examined all of these contracts from 2019 to 2023, without factoring in direct awards given to meet pandemic-related requirements.
The research also shows a rapid increase. In particular, in 2019, the cost of negotiated contracts amounted to 964,288 euros. In 2020, the cost rose to 15,413 million euros, while in 2021 it reached 29,176 million euros.
The figures also increased in 2022, which is also a record year. Significantly, the cost of negotiated contracts signed amounted to 65,016 million euros, while in 2023 it reached 50,640 million euros. In total, the cost of these contracts for the period 2019 – 2023 amounted to around 132 million euro.
The report that exposes George Patoulis
![](https://www.datajournalists.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/5877983.jpg)
The question, of course, is whether it was necessary to sign many of these contracts. In other words, were there really “urgent needs” and “exceptional reasons” to justify them? A partial answer to this question is provided by a report from the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority, published by Data Journalists. This is a report sent to the Attica Region on July 21, 2022, by the Monitoring and Control Department of the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority, following an audit of several contracts awarded by the Attica Region. These were 402 contracts worth €32.005 million concluded by the region between January 1, 2021, and July 2, 2022, and related to “the provision of services … either to deal with the consequences of natural disasters or fires and the rehabilitation of the affected areas”.
More specifically, the contracts concerned, among other things, “the provision of project machinery, vehicles, means of transport, buses and any other type of wheeled or tracked vehicles, together with any necessary accompanying vehicles and their staff for the prevention or response to natural disasters or the transportation of the affected persons to the assistance of the competent institutions”. As the report points out, the region of Attica entered into these contracts by “resorting to the negotiated procedure without prior publication”. However, as stated, “the negotiated procedure is exceptional and may only be applied in a limited number of cases”. For example, the “existence of an urgent need which is incompatible with the time limits imposed by other procedures”, or the “existence of unforeseeable circumstances”, etc.
According to the Court of Auditors, “unforeseeable circumstances” are events “which cannot be objectively foreseen based on the lessons of human experience, are independent of the will of the contracting authority, and must not result from a lack of planning and diligence on the part of the contracting authority”.
![](https://www.datajournalists.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/6063192.jpg)
In addition, according to the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, “recourse to the negotiated procedure is not justified if one of the above conditions of urgency is not met”.
After examining the contracts, the auditors of the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority concluded that “the fulfillment of the above-mentioned conditions for recourse to the negotiated procedure without prior publication is not substantiated”.
“This is because the use of external services to meet, in advance and subsequently, the needs of the institutions responsible for preventing and responding to natural disasters in the exercise of their functions is known in advance and to a significant extent predictable,” they say.
The auditors found that the contracts awarded to deal with exceptional and unforeseen events “show a considerable periodicity, both in winter and in summer”. However, “the above practice, in addition to deviating from the above-mentioned conditions of Union origin, is also likely to conceal the fragmentation of a single and significant amount of expenditure”.
More specifically, the report states that “the coverage of specific needs cannot be considered as a collective emergency, as the Region can and must plan its needs on an annual basis”.
According to the data provided by the Region, “95.6% of the contractual budget (30.597 million euros) for the period under review was awarded through 360 contracts to 17 out of a total of 42 contractors. In fact, 80% of this budget (25.600 million euros for 293 contracts) was awarded to 8 contractors”.
“This shows the similarity of the needs and therefore the feasibility of planning them and the possibility of holding a tender or other appropriate instruments for awarding the contractors of these services,” it says.
The auditors also found “additional negligence on the part of the Attica region, which did not apply to HSPPA for approval” to proceed with the contracts. What has been reported raises serious questions as to whether the budget of the Attica region has been damaged.
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