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Greece bans nepotism by cabinet members

Greece's new government yesterday banned cabinet ministers from giving close family members jobs as assistants or advisers, responding to popular anger after the speaker of the house gave his daughter a parliamentary post.



MP Byron Polydoras Photo: GETTY

By Our Foreign Staff

5:49PM BST 07 Sep 2012

Greece’s new government yesterday banned cabinet ministers from giving close family members jobs as assistants or advisers, responding to popular anger after the speaker of the house gave his daughter a parliamentary post.

Bruised by a fifth year of recession and battling to remain inside the euro, many people in Greece accuse mainstream political parties that have ruled for almost four decades of cronyism in the bloated public sector.

In August, New Democracy MP Byron Polydoras used the single day he served as speaker of a temporary parliament to give his daughter a permanent job in his office.

Local media called Polydoras’s move “immoral”, and thousands signed up to the Facebook page “Polydoras’s resignation now”.

The public backlash came as unemployment data confirmed that more than half of Greeks under 25 are without a job, largely as a result of harsh austerity policies to shore up the debt-laden country’s finances.

Greece’s fragile three-party coalition is making an effort to woo the general public before passing yet another round of austerity measures demanded by international lenders.

In the last few weeks it has instigated law-and-order sweeps against illegal immigrants and criminal gangs, and introduced heating fuel subsidies and price caps on food sold in schools and on public transport.

The government said this week that its drive to clamp down on tax evaders has netted tens of millions of euros. Tax inspectors swooped on island resorts and rock concerts over the summer to impose fines and seize assets.