Justice and truth were the “bare minimum” owed to the people that were killed in the Tempi rail crash and their families, government spokesperson Yiannis Economou said in an interview with SKAI television on Sunday. He stressed that “nothing and no one will prevent an in-depth investigation, as it should be done, on two levels.”
The first level would be that of the investigating committee, while the second will that of justice, he explained, while adding that this was not a partisan issue and the government was therefore steering clear of all talk along such lines.
According to Economou, the “unspeakable tragedy reflects all the dysfunctionalities of the last 15 years”, including those caused by the memorandums when people left their jobs in droves, the bureaucracy that delayed recruitment based on ability, delays introduced by the need for contracts to be checked by the Court of Audit and the lack of a human resources management culture able to assess who should and who should not be placed in crucial positions of responsibility.
“There are the dysfunctionalities of management and the political responsibility, above all, for tolerating these things and not managing for years, including in our own term, to deal with them quickly and decisively, correcting a series of issues,” he said.
Everything will be investigated, he emphasised, including the reports that a politician had intervened so that the specific station master would be hired for the specific post, despite his inexperience, which Economou said was “obviously a huge mistake”, as well as the “systemic problems of a contract that started in 2014 to be completed in 2016 but with successive extensions has not yet been implemented.”
The spokesperson said that this was not a time for the parties to squabble and apportion blame but a “time to understand the systemic problems” and to let justice and the experts do their job while “keeping silent in the face of the tragedy and pain of the people”.
He said that the expert committee will decide how long is needed to reach its conclusions and to identify the systemic problems that led to the disaster so that they can be corrected and that the last thing currently on the prime minister’s mind is the timing of the elections.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
