Stelios Stavridis forced to resign after report he travelled on plane of businessman who had just bought stake in state firm
Greece dismissed the chairman of its privatisation agency on Sunday after a newspaper reported that he travelled on the private plane of a businessman who had bought a state company.
Stelios Stavridis is the second head of HRADF to leave in less than six months, trigger further concerns about Greece's ailing privatisation programme, which is a key part of the country's €240bn (£205bn) bailout by the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
The lenders said in July that they would review the way HRADF was operating, after it emerged that it would miss its 2013 revenue target by about €1bn.
The Greek finance minister, Yannis Stournaras, asked for Stavridis's resignation on Sunday, said the former's department in a brief statement. A finance ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Stavridis's resignation was effective immediately.
The official said the dismissal followed a report that Stavridis travelled last week on the private plane of Dimitris Melissanidis, a shipowner and major shareholder of a Greek-Czech consortium which in May agreed to buy a 33% stake in state gambling firm OPAP. Stavridis was not immediately available for comment.
According to a newspaper report, he admitted he used the plane to travel to his holiday home. "Melissanidis, who was travelling to France, offered to take me with him to accommodate me," he was quoted as saying by the Proto Thema newspaper.
Stavridis took the flight immediately after the signing of an agreement to finalise the €652m OPAP deal, it said.
The chief executive of HRADF, Yannis Emiris, told Reuters he was keeping his post and that the privatisation programme would not suffer from Stavridis's resignation. "There will be absolutely no delays to the programme," he said, rejecting the idea that the OPAP deal might be reversed as a result of Stavridis's resignation.
The finance ministry official confirmed the OPAP deal would not be affected and the Stavridis's resignation was for "ethical reasons".
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