A major PR blunder
It was September 2005 and the prime minister was welcoming city officials at the Thessaloniki International Fair. The then justice minister, Anastasios Papaligouras, announced that one of the city’s biggest demands, the construction of a new courthouse at the port facilities, was going to be met. The city’s judges and lawyers, unable to effectively perform their mounting duties in the existing courthouse, hailed the decision and the project went ahead. No one complained about the project and on August 2, 2007, in a lavish ceremony, the construction agreement was signed by the government and the Thessaloniki Port Authority and models of the design were presented. Back then, the minister had said that the project would take three years to complete, and here we are today, three years later when the current Minister of Justice, Sotiris Hatzigakis, rolled into town and said that the new courthouse would not be located in the port after all, but at some other location that has yet to be designated. Hatzigakis blamed the delay on Public Works Minister Giorgos Souflias who, he said, put a stop to construction because it was interfering with the underwater tunnel – another project of which eventual completion remains in doubt. We are in no position to say whether the port was the right location and are pretty certain that the average citizen does not care about that anyway, but does wonder what lies behind the cancellation of the project. There are questions that must be answered, if only to silence the rumor-mongering, such as why it took three whole years of planning, of studies, of expenses and of high hopes before we were put back to square one just yesterday. As far as the government is concerned, this was a major public relations blunder. On the eve of the prime minister’s visit to the city, at a time when Thessaloniki is – justly or unjustly – buzzing with complaints about unkept promises, one minister has gone some way to confirming the truth of the rumors.
