SYRIZA dismisses reports of clientelist hirings as 'smear campaign'

It rejected claims in these reports that the return of 12 employees to the public sector was a pre-election political favour, pointing out that thousands of laid-off public sector employees had gone back to their jobs on the basis of the same legislation, long before the elections.

The announcement stressed that the SYRIZA government's legislative and political message "was to do everything possible to correct the injustices of previous governments toward Greek citizens."

SYRIZA said that the case concerned the return of highly specialised employees that were initially placed on availability and finally laid off from the Institute of Audiovisual Media and the National Audiovisual Archives when these were scrapped in 2011. These were rehired on the basis of the 'Katrougalos' law on July 1, while the decision on August 27 simply modified the initial decision, based on the employees own choice to be hired by another public-sector agency.

The announcement also stressed that the sums quoted were the gross salaries and employer contribtutions of all 12 employees, which was made clear in the publication of the act, which it noted was also published on the Diavgia website.