Revelation: The new “Petsas List” is worth €4 Million for the Land Registry

• Millions are being rushed out in the middle of summer to promote a project that hasn’t even been completed, while Deputy Minister of the Land Registry Christos Boukoros has resigned over the OPEKEPE scandal.
• The goal is to disburse €2.1 million by July 20, 2025.
• Meanwhile, the company’s president, Stelios Sakaretsios, was preparing to leave his post to join Konstantinos Kyranakis once again — this time as General Secretary for Transport.
• The Land Registry’s IT systems experienced a five-day hardware outage. According to an exclusive report by Data Journalists, many regional systems are still not fully operational.
• Employees warned Prime Minister Mitsotakis that the systems were on the verge of collapse.
• Once again, the lion’s share goes to the TV channel owners — they’ll receive €2.3 million.

By Aris Chatzigeorgiou

Old habits die hard, and this saying fits the Mitsotakis government perfectly. Despite the scandals and ministerial sackings, the government continues with the same tactics undeterred. Last week, while the OPEKEPE scandal exploded into the headlines, thousands of property owners and buyers experienced their own private nightmare when the Land Registry’s information systems went down for five straight days. Yet on Thursday, June 26, the Land Registry board met to urgently approve allocating €4 million to the media to promote the company’s digital “successes” in July.

This is yet another “Petsas List” – another round of public funds funneled to feed the government’s communications machinery. For years, this machinery has ensured an unprecedented silence around the government’s wrongdoings. Ironically, the leadership of the Land Registry is planning to launch a massive advertising campaign in the middle of summer, despite the fact that the project they’re promoting – the digitization of the Land Registry’s archives – hasn’t even been completed. This is all happening while the deputy minister in charge of the land registry, Christos Boukoros, has just resigned and the company’s president, Stelios Sakaretsios, is preparing to step down to join Konstantinos Kyranakis once again, this time as general secretary for transport. But let’s lay things out clearly:

• One of the government’s favorite arguments when it is on the defensive is its supposed success in digitizing the state. The gov.gr platform and a series of other systems, whose applications multiplied during the pandemic, are routinely presented as tools that cut down on bureaucracy. However, near the end of Kyriakos Pierrakakis’s first term, warning signs began to emerge as these systems revealed themselves to be vulnerable to cyberattacks.
• In the government’s second term, the leadership of the digital transformation effort was handed over to Dimitris Papastergiou, the former mayor of Trikala and president of the Central Union of Municipalities. However, the rising star turned out to be his deputy minister at the time, Konstantinos Kyranakis. Over time, the digital systems began to buckle under pressure as their core infrastructure, such as storage and backup systems, neared exhaustion. Nevertheless, Mr. Papastergiou pushed for the rollout of new artificial intelligence applications.
• With the help of the “Truth Team,” Konstantinos Kyranakis was portrayed as a guru of digital applications. After millions of citizens protested the Tempi train disaster, he was tasked with rescuing Greece’s railway system. What was his main credential? The supposed progress in mapping the country’s land, a narrative heavily promoted by pro-government online trolls. The collapse of the Land Registry’s information systems after a cyberattack in summer 2024 was treated as if it never happened. Kyranakis promised to track trains using Land Registry applications, specifically the HEPOS system.
• One month before the OPEKEPE scandal erupted, on May 26, 2025, the IT staff of the Land Registry drafted and sent a letter to the government and the Prime Minister. The letter warned of the imminent risk of total collapse due to outdated systems. “Unless our stated concerns are properly addressed, there is a serious risk of system destabilization or even complete data loss, with potential consequences that may include the temporary or permanent suspension of real estate transactions,” they wrote. This letter echoed the desperate warnings that railway workers had issued before the Tempi tragedy – warnings that were also ignored.
• In the same letter, the employees raised concerns about the security of the Land Registry’s data. They referred to incidents involving “private individuals” who, over the past year and a half, have shown up at Land Registry offices despite having no formal connection to the agency. According to the employees, these individuals claim to work for companies that will supposedly enter into future contracts with the Hellenic Cadastre. They demand that staff facilitate their access to data, primarily through system interfaces or direct access. “As you can understand, this is illegal and poses serious risks,” the employees warned. They emphasized that these individuals “have no legal relationship with the Cadastre and therefore no legal obligation to protect the sensitive personal data of Greek citizens. They have no legal responsibility for the quality of their work, nor any liability for damages in the event of harm.”
• Employees also expressed frustration that unauthorized individuals roam freely through the Land Registry while a critical framework contract, worth €4.8 million (excluding VAT and a 100% extension clause), signed at the end of 2023, has yet to be implemented. Meanwhile, senior IT executives are resigning and leaving the organization altogether. The agency’s president, Stelios Sakaretsios, seems undisturbed by the repeated warnings. Perhaps he’s more focused on joining Konstantinos Kyranakis as General Secretary for Transport. Or maybe he feels protected by his brother, whom he hired as a consultant at the Land Registry with admistrator access to the IT systems.
• The IT hardware systems blacked out on Tuesday, June 24. All recovery efforts failed. The backup systems were activated, but they failed as well. As a result, the Land Registry’s management was forced to announce a complete suspension of its operations. There were growing fears that some data might have been permanently lost. While efforts to restore functionality continued, engineers, lawyers, and notaries began voicing complaints about missed legal deadlines and appointments. After five days of black screens, the agency announced on Sunday, June 29, that systems had been restored. However, according to reports, some regional systems are still only partially operational.

This atmosphere of chaos was compounded by two major developments. First, Christos Boukoros, the Deputy Minister responsible for the Land Registry, was named in the OPEKEPE scandal case file and submitted his resignation. Shortly beforehand, reports emerged about the upcoming departure of Stelios Sakaretsios, president of the Land Registry. Sakaretsios is expected to take a position as general secretary of transport under Konstantinos Kyranakis.

Who’s Getting the €4 Million? — “Initiative” to Distribute the Cash Once Again

Amid the ongoing chaos, the Hellenic Cadastre’s Board of Directors convened on Thursday afternoon, June 26, 2025. One of the key agenda items was a proposal to expedite a €4 million advertising campaign for the digitization of the country’s mortgage registry records — a project that aims to convert hundreds of millions of paper pages into digital files.

The €300 million project was launched in 2021 and awarded to five contractors in 2022, with funding from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). After 2024, Konstantinos Kyranakis attempted to speed up the process. However, the process encountered setbacks and legal appeals when it was discovered that the delivered files did not contain individual digital records for each contract but rather bundled entire batches of notarial acts. The project is officially supposed to be completed by the end of 2025, but it remains to be seen whether that will happen.

Since September 2024, the Kyranakis–Sakaretsios administration has requested that €4 million be allocated from the RRF budget specifically for the “advertising promotion of the digitization project.”

Another “Petsas List” is in the works, with Initiative—the same agency that handled the first round of pandemic-era government media spending—assigned to media planning and distribution. Initially, the plan was for the campaign to run after fall 2025.

However, the proposal presented to the Hellenic Cadastre’s Board of Directors last Thursday reflects a sudden shift; the dates have been moved up dramatically, creating the impression of an urgent need to fast-track the campaign. The €4 million budget is effectively split in half:

1. €2.1 million is to be distributed by July 20, 2025, in the middle of summer vacation, when most people are presumably deeply interested in the digitization of mortgage archives.
2. €1.9 million is scheduled for distribution between August 25 and September 21, 2025, once again, before the digitization project is completed.
3. The lion’s share, €2.3 million, will go to television channels, securing their dominant slice of the pie as has been the norm in previous campaigns.
4. Online news sites will receive €680,000, a smaller portion of the total media spending.
5. Radio stations in Athens and Thessaloniki will receive €403,000, while regional radio stations will receive €173,600.
6. Nationwide newspapers will receive €312,000, while regional newspapers will receive €134,000.

This funding is intended to promote a project that will primarily benefit lawyers and notaries once completed. More importantly, however, it serves to fuel the machinery that ensures media silence. Many outlets essentially leech off public funds while praising the Mitsotakis government at a time when other systems, like the so-called “Truth Team,” may be facing financial challenges.