Greek Corruption

Der Spiegel has an article on Greek corruption--including falsifying welfare eligibility, tax evasion, and official corruption--that is draining the country of money. Here's just a portion:

Greece's largest social security organization, IKA, has been used by many in the country as their personal piggy bank. The fact that IKA coffers are actually empty hasn't stopped department heads or low-level employees from continuing to transfer money to friends and relatives who are not entitled to receive any payments whatsoever. But even everyday citizens take advantage of the system: Of the supposedly 700 blind people on the island of Zakynthos, for instance, in reality there are only 60 who truly cannot see.

Thanks to such commonplace tricks, an estimated 40 percent of Greece's annual gross domestic product (GDP) still generates no revenues for state coffers, says Athens-based corruption investigator Leandros Rakintzis.

According to Transparency International's Costa Bakouris, Greece has all the right conditions for corruption: plenty of bureaucracy, no functioning justice system, laws with numerous loopholes -- and economic pressure. Bakouris was himself an entrepreneur and lived for 20 years in Switzerland. He says Greeks like him, who have lived abroad for many years, have the clearest perception of the problems in their homeland. Bakouris also briefly worked for the state as the managing director of preparations for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. After two years, he "more or less fired" himself. He says that he refused to accept that all bids -- whether they were for major infrastructure projects or for the carpeting in the Olympic village -- should be roughly three times as high as they were in Sydney, which hosted the games in 2000.

Is it any wonder that Greece is circling the drain?