Health agency staff say aides intimidated them
The union representing workers of the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO) on Wednesday issued a statement claiming that its members had been threatened and intimidated by associates of Deputy Health Minister Pavlos Polakis.
Noting that workers had made a similar complaint over a year ago, the union said that associates of Polakis as well as members of KEELPNO’s management had pressured staff into presenting “false data that would serve the party-focused goals of Mr Polakis and undermine his political rivals.”
The union added that it had taken its claims to the General Inspectorate for Public Administration, which it accused of “doing everything possible not to investigate, to any extent, our absolutely substantiated claims.”
The members of the body’s inspection unit display even more abusive behavior towards KEELPNO staff than Polakis’s associates, the union’s statement added, accusing them of “plotting political persecutions while turning a blind eye to real scandals.”