State Audit Council

The first 140 electric buses from Chinese company Yutong may have arrived in Athens last weekend - plus another 110 in Thessaloniki - and the time is approaching for their circulation on the road, but Kathimerini understands there are issues with the accompanying equipment.

This year will see the definitive completion of pensioners' retroactive claims, with the plenary of the Council of State and the State Audit Council preparing to issue irrevocable verdicts in response to demands by retirees from the public and the private sectors regarding cuts implemented in the first few years of the financial crisis.

Another court and fiscal drama is due to unfold in mid-January, with the Finance Ministry monitoring developments closely.

The Council of State is on January 15 to start hearing the cases of pensioners claiming retroactive dues from slashed holiday bonuses and auxiliary pensions.

The State Audit Council has according to sources approved the amendment to Athens International Airport's concession contract that extends its duration for another 20 years, until 2046. Now state privatizations fund TAIPED and the company that operates the airport are aiming to sign the contract by year-end.

A piece of Finance Ministry legislation that introduces wage increases for employees hired over the past seven years has prompted angry reactions from those workers who do not stand to benefit from the provision, widely seen as a handout by the leftist-led government which is trailing in opinion polls ahead of elections next year.

Direct concessions, excessive budgets, absence of documents, and the insufficient organization of internal procedures, staff training and agency staffing are the main factors keeping the state's overdue debts at a high level and delaying payments to its suppliers, a report by the State Audit Council showed on Wednesday.

The signing ceremony of the contract granting rights to the consortium of France's Total, Italy's Edison and Greece's ELPE to explore for, and exploit, hydrocarbons in plot 2 in the Ionian Sea in western Greece will take place on Tuesday at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in southern Athens.

The Labor Ministry is looking to break a political and social deadlock the government finds itself in over a long list of overdue new pensions that has put it under pressure from creditors, the opposition and society in general.

It was clear from the get-go that the legal amendments hurried through by the government in June to put an end to a strike by municipal garbage collectors over the loss of fixed-term contract workers' jobs was skating on thin constitutional ice.

Hundreds of fixed-term contract municipal sanitation workers around Greece have not been paid even though the government passed a legislative amendment in June approving their rehiring after their earlier contracts expired.