Why is the National Cadastre Shutting Down?

An article in Eleftherotypia newspaper entitled “They're tearing down the cadaster,” has caused (NATIONAL CADASTRE & MAPPING AGENCY S.A.) EKXA the company running the effort to issue a refutation, which by no means seems to have defused the situation as alternate finance minister Christos Staikouras has called a snap visit to the company's headquarters on Thursday.

In the article, journalist Argyris Demertzis states that the government has siphoned 250 million euros worth of the company's liquid assets, which they used to beef up the primary surplus.

According to Mr Demertzis the method behind the government's madness is to destroy the biggest of the large public projects worth over one billion euros and through the state asset fund TAIPED sell it off to private firms.

This of course wipes out a whole series of cheery proclamations by environment minister Yannis Maniatis concerning how well the cadastre project is running along.

As gleamed from other sources, including the regional or local press in various areas of Greece, the operations of the company have frozen and various regional offices are in the process of shutting down. The company has also frozen payments to suppliers.

At the same time, the new management under Ilias Liakopoulos, formerly regional governor of Attica from PASOK (who was placed there after a controversial move to depose DEMAR's Dimitris Kaloudis in March) to expedite operations is part of the problem. The new board has failed to convene since April for reasons not explained to the public, but which Mr Demertzis implies have to do with the legitimacy of its composition. This inactivity has stopped any furtheroperations (surveying, mapmaking, designating land use, and establishing permanent offices).

Mr Demertzis state that the “fall” of EKXA is due to finance minister Yannis Stournaras' decision to siphon off 250 million euros from the company to fund the “primary surplus.” This money had been accumulated by charging citizens 35 euros per title in 2008 to register their properties. According to law this money was to be for the sole use of funding the cadastre's finalization.

The issue was brought to the fore by the unions of the technical scientists and legal experts that work for the company. However, the announcements only came to light after the elections. However, as Mr Demertzis notes, is highly suspect as until now everyone, including those working for the company, while for months media sounded the alarm.

If the allegations prove true they may act as a negative catalyst to relations with troika creditors who may see this as a lack of government reliability and an attempt to hoodwink them. It might also strike at the career of Mr Stournaras, who as of late has been clearly jockeying for a promotion, eyeing the governorship of the Bank of Greece, among others.

The NATIONAL CADASTRE & MAPPING AGENCY S.A. company is a Legal Entity of Private Law and its mission is the study, development and operation of the Hellenic Cadastre. The company was founded with a joint decision of the Minister of Economy and Finance and the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works (Decision 81706/6085/6-10-1995/Government Gazette 872Β/19-10-1995). NCMA S.A. operates according to the rules of private finance and the provisions of article 5 of Law 2229/1994, of the coded Law 2190/1920, of Law 2308/1995 and Law Ν.2664/1998, as these stand today. Furthermore, the company does not fall under the class of organizations and businesses of the broader state sector; regulations that concern companies directly or indirectly owned by the State do not apply to NCMA S.A. The sole shareholder of the company is the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change.