- Total vindication for Data Journalists on Patoulis’ tenure in Attica and the scandalous waste management funds”.
- Three elected officials from the camp of Nikos Hardalias, two other local government officials, and the financial director of the Attica Waste Management Authority (EDSNA) will be referred for prosecution.
- Why did the Mitsotakis government allow the Attica administration of Giorgos Patoulis to sign contracts without secured financing, only to pull the plug later?
- Why is the auditor’s report, announced by Nikos Hardalias to the displeasure of the Prime Minister’s Office, still being delayed?
By Aris Chatzigeorgiou
The National Transparency Authority (EAD) has referred three elected officials from the camp of Nikos Hardalias, two other local government officials, and the financial director of the Attica Waste Management Authority (EDSNA) to prosecutors over the disappearance of 34.7 million euros during the administration of Giorgos Patoulis.
Attica municipalities collected the funds in 2022 and 2023 through the landfill fee, which was intended to support recycling. However, EDSNA withheld most of the money, as EAD’s investigation revealed, because it had no other means to finance the €334 million in contracts signed by Patoulis—contracts made under the assumption that the government would later secure EU (ESPA) funding.
Last April, Data Journalists published two in-depth reports on the €200 million financial “black hole” in Attica’s waste management under the Patoulis administration, with the €34.7 million landfill fee being just the tip of the iceberg.
Eight months after the initial revelations, a major dispute over the landfill fee erupted. EDSNA attempted to collect massive sums from Attica’s municipalities, prompting opposition from local mayors. The government tried to appear conciliatory, while the Attica Regional Authority eventually reversed its decision, blaming the Ministry of Environment and Energy (YPEN) for providing misleading data.
The report by the National Transparency Authority (EAD), revealed today by Data Journalists, confirms the scandalous mismanagement of waste management funds. It details how EDSNA aggressively pursued municipal contributions – money collected from residents through electricity bills – only to later divert the landfill fee funds by removing them from their intended budget codes.
It is clear, however, that this investigation only focused on the most exposed part of a much broader problem of mismanagement that spans multiple projects in Attica and across Greece. Data Journalists have previously reported on the hidden wealth in waste management and Greece’s alarming delays in modernizing its system. While the country aims to reduce landfill to 10% by 2030, over 80% of its solid waste is still buried – compared to just 25% in the rest of Europe. Achieving this goal will require a complete overhaul: waste must be sorted at source, organic materials (kitchen and garden waste) must be separated, recyclables (metal, glass, paper, plastic, wood, fabric) must be efficiently processed, and the remaining waste must be properly treated. According to EU guidelines, this treatment can also produce fuel for energy generation.
Despite 20 years of discussion about recycling, Greece has made little progress – especially in the last five years, when the New Democracy government had the advantage of working with a large majority of politically aligned regional governors and mayors. This failure cannot be attributed solely to financial mismanagement, such as the scandal exposed by the EAD report. In the absence of an organized recycling system, the only way to dispose of Greece’s 4 million tons of municipal waste per year (excluding agricultural, industrial, and hazardous waste) is through direct incineration – a method strongly favored by large industrial interests, including electricity producers and cement manufacturers. These interests gained traction during the Mitsotakis government, which maintained tight control over policymaking and waste management decisions.
The so-called “executive state” attempted to take over waste management projects – traditionally the responsibility of local governments – and sought to direct at least €2 billion in funding. The Ministry of Environment and Energy (YPEN) issued several tenders for waste treatment facilities. However, as of January 2025, the call for funding under the EU’s 2021-2027 ESPA program has not yet been issued, and when it is, only €800 million will be allocated. With a funding gap of over €1 billion, the only viable solution seems to be private investment. However, private companies demand guarantees and stable revenue streams, which would likely mean higher municipal fees – something many local government officials strongly oppose and are reluctant to transfer waste management responsibilities to private hands.
The mismanagement under Giorgos Patoulis’ government (2020-2023) has fueled arguments for transferring waste management responsibilities away from local authorities. The government apparently allowed the Attica regional administration to sign contracts without secured funding, only to later pull the rug out from under them. In a desperate attempt to cover the financial gap, EDSNA resorted to accounting tricks and ended up withholding funds from the municipalities. By law, these funds should have been transferred to the Hellenic Recycling Organization (EOAN), a government agency responsible for projects and procurement. During this time, Patoulis campaigned for re-election as governor of Attica with the open support of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis until a political fiasco unfolded. In July 2023, as wildfires raged across Greece, Patoulis was caught on camera dancing a zeibekiko, sparking public outrage. He was soon replaced by Nikos Hardalias.
The investigation of EDSNA by the National Transparency Authority (EAD) began in April 2024. A month later, the Hardalias government decided to commission an audit (due diligence) by the accounting firm SOL to examine “the financial and tax matters of the finances of Attica for the fiscal years 2020-2023”. This audit was supposed to be completed by October 2024, but the firm requested an extension until December 31, 2024, citing the fact that the Attica Regional Authority had not provided all the final documents and information necessary for the audit. The Hardalias government accepted the extension, and the regional governor himself recently stated that the results would be published by January 20, 2025, adding that “many people would lose sleep”. However, the report has yet to surface, and several media outlets have reported growing dissatisfaction from the Prime Minister’s Office towards Nikos Hardalias.
Officials referred to the Prosecutor
Against this volatile backdrop, exacerbated by the government’s mishandling of the Tempe train disaster and the resulting public outcry, the findings of the National Transparency Authority (EAD) report further exacerbate the situation. The report reveals that five elected officials who were central to the management of EDSNA under Patoulis’ leadership will be referred for disciplinary action for dereliction of duty. These individuals were part of the agency’s executive committee. They include:
- Vassilis Kokkalis, a close associate of Giorgos Patoulis who served as president of EDSNA. Kokkalis was re-elected in the 2023 elections alongside Nikos Hardalias and was appointed by Hardalias as “Special Advisor for Crisis Management Logistics Centers,” according to the Attica Region website.
- Eleftherios Kosmopoulos, former Deputy Governor of Western Attica under Giorgos Patoulis, who was re-elected alongside Nikos Hardalias and appointed Deputy Governor for Physical Planning and Urban Development.
- Nikos Chiotakis, former mayor of Kifisia, who was appointed to EDSNA by Giorgos Patoulis while also serving as president of EOAN (the agency expected to receive the €34.7 million but ultimately received only €1.5 million). Chiotakis was re-elected along with Nikos Hardalias with 12,000 votes.
- Christos Pappou, mayor of Fyli during Patoulis’ tenure and still in office, was accused of voting to prevent funds from being transferred to EOAN while his municipality received €40 million annually as compensation for hosting Europe’s largest landfill.
- Evangelos Bournous, former mayor of Rafina-Pikermi during the Mati tragedy and now a member of the city council.
In addition to these elected officials, the EAD report also names Georgios-Dimos Zaharopoulos, the former economic director of EDSNA, as a key player in the case. As reported in a previous article, Zaharopoulos was not only the longtime president of the EDSNA workers’ union but also a former candidate of Giannis Sgouros.
The 10 key points of the report
The disciplinary review for misconduct will be conducted by the Decentralized Administration of Attica for the elected officials and by the current president of EDSNA, Charalambos Siatras, for the economic director. However, the EAD has also sent the report to the prosecutor of the Athens Court of Appeals “for criminal assessment of its contents”. In addition, the EAD is requesting that EDSNA be included in the next scheduled tax audit by the General Directorate of Tax Audits of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance. Here are some of the key points from the EAD report:
- EDSNA’s budget for 2022 includes “a total amount of €25,625,026.28, of which €25,620,796.00 corresponds to ¾ of the total amount of burial fees for 2022 (€34,161,061.00), as estimated to be collected within the year 2022, according to the contributions of the municipalities – members of EDSNA, as provided by the electricity bills of DEI.”
- In April 2022, “the EDSNA price regulation for 2022 was approved and the burial fee for 2022 was included in the administrative costs in accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 38 of Law 4819/2021. The contribution of the Municipalities – Members of EDSNA for the year 2022 was set at 34,668,791.00 euros according to the aforementioned decision”.
- “The total amount requested from the DEI for withholding in respect of the 2022 burial fee was (in total) 34,177,754.00 euros. It should be noted that this amount was not separately identified in the aforementioned EDSNA documents sent to the DEI”.
- “Through a series of decisions, a total of 105,487,425.66 euros was withheld from the municipalities – members of EDSNA – in four quarterly installments through the DEI, while the amount of 23,176,330.43 euros was not withheld (due to municipal debts). EDSNA has asked the Ministry of the Interior to make up the difference, which in turn is withholding the amounts from state subsidies to municipalities. The burial fee is part of the withheld amounts”.
- Two revenue codes were recorded in the 2023 EDSNA budget, with amounts of €26,001,592.87 corresponding to ¾ (based on DEI’s revenue from municipalities – members of EDSNA) of the total 2022 Burial Fee, and an additional €8,817,197.25 related to the 4th quarter of 2022 Burial Fee.
- The total amount of the 2022 Burial Fee collected as of October 31, 2022, was €17,176,674.40 and reached €25,686,133.07 by the end of the year. Taking into account the amount deposited in the following year, the total Burial Fee collected for 2022 was €34,668,789.00.
- However, a series of budget changes began in February 2022. The expense codes related to the amounts to be transferred to the EOAN began to shrink, with entries deemed necessary by the EDSNA administration and services “for the proper functioning of the organization and made on the basis of recommendations from the relevant departments”. By October 2022, only 100,000 euros remained in the codes “for the proper functioning of EDSNA”.
- At the beginning of 2023, other codes related to burial costs were “reduced by 16,334,395.00 and 30,626,960.00 euros, bringing them to 1,000,000.00 and 2,000,000.00 euros, respectively” and then set to zero. These adjustments were considered “necessary by the administration and services of the EDSNA in the context of the smooth operation of the organization and to counter the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic”.
- During the EAD’s investigation, Mr. G. Zacharopoulos, Financial Director (Deputy Head of the Financial Services Department) was questioned about the aforementioned changes, and in his reply he stated, inter alia, that “during the relevant period, EDSNA was obliged to implement projects for a total amount of € 334,256,088.74, based on the provisions of the Regional Council for Waste Management Planning (PESDA) of Attica and in order to achieve national and EU recycling targets”. He continued: “Therefore, EDSNA’s obligations regarding the payment of fixed and inelastic costs to third parties have been prioritized, while a request for payment of the fee in installments has been sent to EOAN. At the same time, for the immediate future, it was expected that revenues would be increased by the inflow of funds from the National Strategic Reference Framework (ESPA)”.
- As for the five members of the Executive Committee who are being referred, they responded to the EAD by stating that “they were performing secondary/ancillary duties in relation to their primary roles in their respective municipalities or regions” and that “they approved the transfers within the framework of the legality of the process, as the Financial Services were responsible for the appropriateness of the actions taken. In other words… they just voted.
