#Vouligraphic | The real image of Greek MPs’ financial interest statements

Along with the economic crisis we are also facing a political crisis.

The historically established mentality of the Greek political system doesn’t prioritize transparency or give it the importance that its citizens today demand, a tradition that is reflected in the financial interest statements of MPs for the years 2013 and 2014, which were disclosed in December 2016. This is the conclusion we at Vouliwatch have reached following an in-depth review to digitize and process the data. We approached this exercise not with the intention of scandal-mongering, or with any other aim than to assess the process itself, and what we ultimately found was a multitude of oversights and omissions. The necessity of fully disclosing financial data as required by law in a complete and uniform manner is a principle that is clearly not embedded in our parliamentarians.

A typical example is that, although the majority of MPs take care to declare their assets in detail, a significant number simply cite the phrase “no change”. By the same logic, many elements are omitted either because some MPs think them to be self-evident, or because the statements are not completed with due diligence.

It is also clear that although the process is regulated by a Parliamentary Committee, they haven’t, to this day, succeeded in tackling these practices.

Vouliwatch.gr reports this state of affairs following a detailed investigation of the statements, conducted with the aim of fully informing citizens, and to increase transparency. The issue is of critical importance for the Greek Parliament since it is commonly accepted that along with the economic crisis we are also facing a political crisis.

Of course this doesn’t begin to approach the more fundamental problem of the current process; namely that the statements essentially constitute a picture of the financial situation of the MP rather than the result of an audit on the origin of the assets; we learn what assets the MP has, but not how they were obtained, a problem that has been recognized by the Prime Minister himself.

At Vouliwatch.gr we continue the struggle for more transparency in our political system and below we present an infographic taking stock of the shortcomings and omissions in the financial interest statements published by the Parliamentary Committee:

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