Vassilis Kegeroglou

The leftist Greek government on Monday continued to face a “Whac-a-Mole”-like array of political “hiccups”, with the latest emerging from newspaper report out of Thessaloniki accusing an alternate minister of exporting 80,000 euros last March.

Deputy Labor Minister Vassilis Kegeroglou on Thursday unveiled a European Union-funded program aimed at providing food and material support to some 165,000 poor Greek families.

The program, which has a budget of 330 million euros, is to run from 2015 through 2020, and will be implemented in association with the Church of Greece and local authorities.

The Labor Ministry’s general secretariat for welfare was expected to disburse the first tranche of compensation to six Attica municipalities which suffered damage during heavy rainstorms on October 24.

Changes to the public sector wage structure are at the heart of a dispute within the coalition that has raised concerns about whether the government will be in a position to negotiate effectively when the troika returns to Athens.

A firm owned by Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panayiotaros sold 25,000 euros’ worth of hygiene products to the nongovernmental organization Doctors of the World and received part of its payment from the European Refugee Fund, it was revealed in Parliament on Friday.