The country needs a government composed of a tight group of 20 ministers. This can be accomplished by eliminating the positions of deputy ministers and by drastically reducing the number of General and Special Secretaries.
The following are the main political proposals made by Stavros Theodorakis, the leader of Potami.
- The country needs a government composed of a tight group of 20 ministers. This can be accomplished by eliminating the positions of deputy ministers and by drastically reducing the number of General and Special Secretaries.
- Abolition of party control of the administration and cuts in the running costs of those that occupy the highest ranks of power.
- Shutting down or merging the 490 legal entities that belong to the State but are officially classified as governed under the statutes of private enterprises, and which employ less than 20 people.
- Strengthening and expanding the Central Procurement Agency to cover all purchases by the public sector, in order to eliminate the waste and corruption in the ministries.
- Extending the Transparency Project to cover the entire public sector, as well as the expenditures of the political parties.
- Replacing every two civil servants that leave with a person under 30.
Mr. Theodorakis made specific proposals to fight unemployment and to support the weaker social groups:
- We must add 100.000 jobs per year in order to bring down unemployment to 12% within five years.
- Implement privatizations and stop the procrastination with the contracts.
- Greece needs to create new wealth, based on the following:
- Large investments in Energy, Tourism and Transports.
- Continuing investments in Agriculture.
- New investments in Education and Young entrepreneurship.
- Immediate return of the VAT without further inspections to companies that are on a special list of companies checked and found to be fully compliant.
- Zero taxation for the first five years for new investments that will create more than new 100 jobs.
- Radical change of the bankruptcy code, since there is nothing more wasteful in a society than preventing creative people from disengaging themselves from a business failure.
- Unification of the social insurance system
- Guaranteed Minimum Income, which will affect more than 600.000 people, who are truly poor.
- Free access for these people to a basic package of health services, including visits to doctors, medicines and hospital treatment.
- Guarantee that all children aged between 2 and 5 will have access to day care centers.
- School meals in every school, free for poor students, with a small charge for the rest
Mr. Theodorakis made specific proposals for the farmers:
- Abolition of the traditional methods of subsidies and adoption of a simple system to distribute the Common Agricultural Aid based on the size of the property and the type of cultivation.
- Zero taxation for new farmers for the first three years.
- Zero taxation on low agricultural incomes, analogous to the rules that are in force for salaried employees.
- Stepped increases in the contributions to Social Security, instead of uniform increases for all. Give the choice to farmers to select between a basic and a full retirement package.
On education:
- Cooperation of the public and private sectors in research programs at the universities.
- English-speaking departments in order to attract foreign students
- Private universities in cooperation with Local Authorities, until the Constitution is changed.
Photo credit: Theodore Manolopoulos
