Sinister swap of ELFE assets at DEPA’s expense
Kathimerini has seen documents from general shareholders meetings and court case evidence that point to plans to sell properties belonging to Hellenic Fertilizers and Chemicals SA (ELFE) to the Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) at a price 10 times their true value of 8.9 million euros with the aim of having equivalent debts to the energy supplier written off.
Although DEPA has had a report by an independent surveyor who assessed the value of the ELFE properties at just under 9 million euros at its disposal since 2011, the former chief executive officer of DEPA, Theodoros Kitsakos, presented an October 24, 2016 board meeting with another study valuing the ELFE properties 10 times higher.
What Kitsakos crucially failed to inform the DEPA board members was that the second assessment had been conducted for ELFE, and not for DEPA, as he claimed at a recent press conference.
The idea of exchanging ELFE property assets for the write-off of debt resulting from unpaid gas bills was first proposed in 2008, when the manufacturer of fertilizer products still belonged to the state, according to the documents seen by Kathimerini.
