Migration Ministry at odds with contracts authority

The Migration Ministry is on a collision course with the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority, the independent body overseeing state contracts, due to a government bill aimed at accelerating the approval of contracts for refugee housing.

The bill allows for the use or leasing of “all appropriate facilities for the reception and identification or temporary hosting” of refugees and is to be submitted in a bill titled “Urgent Reforms.”

But the authority believes the proposed reform does not qualify as urgent and does not justify the bypassing of laws relating to public contracts.

Sources said, however, that the government wants to legitimize contracts that have been signed and might bring the bill to Parliament despite the authority’s objections.