The Court of Auditors first imposed a penalty of 3 million euros in the form of a fiscal correction on Attica’s waste management association (EDSNA) after uncovering numerous violations in co-financed procurements and tailor-made procedures for the selection of TEXAN’s “recycling houses”.
EDSNA, the waste management agency representing Attica’s municipalities, is primarily governed by the Attica Region. As recently reported by Data Journalists (“EDSNA: Admission of Patoulis’ “black hole” and inability to pay debts – Intervention of the NTA”), the administration under Giorgos Patoulis left a 200 million euro “black hole” in the agency’s finances, while the National Transparency Authority is reportedly investigating the case.
Today, Data Journalists reveal that the Financial Audit Committee (EDEL) conducted a prior audit of certain procurements at the request of the European Commission, which funded them.
We present the full EDEL report, which found numerous violations not only in EDSNA’s procurements but also in those of two other agencies: the Regional Association of Solid Waste Management Agencies of the Peloponnese Region and the Crete Waste Management Association ESDAK (Unified Waste Management Association of Crete). However, EDEL acknowledges that no disbursements have been made for these specific procurements in the latter two agencies and therefore no fiscal correction has been imposed on them at this time.
It should be noted that EDEL carries out audits on the procedures of co-financed projects. One of the best-known “fines” imposed by EDEL was the 2.4-million-euro penalty imposed on ERGOSE for the infamous contract 717, which concerned train traffic management projects. This contract, had it been executed, could have potentially prevented the Tempi disaster, and EDEL had already issued its report on it in 2019.
This report is also linked to the criminal charges brought by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office against executives of ERGOSE, the special management service (EYD) for EU funds under the Managing Authority for Transport Infrastructure, Environment, and Sustainable Development, and the suppliers involved. After a five-year delay, the Court of Auditors annulled the EDEL report in May 2024, leading to celebrations within the government and reports that the European Public Prosecutor’s accusations had no legal basis.
Interestingly, in the case of the procurements of EDSNA, the Regional Association of Solid Waste Management Agencies of the Peloponnese Region and ESDAK, EDEL identifies specific omissions that also implicate the Court of Auditors… But let’s return to the squares of Attica and numerous other areas that have been filled with “recycling houses”.
Recycling Houses’ are large kiosk-like installations, introduced in Athens in the 2000s. These structures allow people to dispose of packaging materials and receive a nominal reward in the form of a coupon redeemable in participating supermarkets (1 euro for 33 packages). In recent years, especially since 2019, these bulky structures have proliferated in squares in every corner of Greece, but EDEL notes that this expansion has come at a very high cost.
Shortly after Kyriakos Mitsotakis became prime minister, on December 5, 2019, he officially inaugurated, together with the then US ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, the “production plant of Rewarding Recycling Machines in Greece”.
The company’s press releases (
