Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-07-05
CONTENTS
[01] PASOK leader slams gov't policy for PPC
[01] PASOK leader slams gov't policy for PPC
Main opposition PASOK leader George Papandreou criticised the
government's policies for the Public Power Corporation (PPC) on
Thursday as "frivolous and without prospects". He made the statement
during a visit to the facilities of the Manager of the Hellenic System
for the Transfer of Electrical Power DESMHE.
He asserted that the government had taken over the PPC as a company
with good prospects and that it was now in financial trouble.
"We are now talking about marginal situations in terms of power load,
while there should be provision for tomorrow," Papandreou added, while
raising an issue of energy security.
He also accused the government of talking big about making Greece an
energy junction while not paying attention to the fundamentals, like
electricity pylons.
PASOK's leader also stressed that his party was not opposed to
cooperation with the private sector but that this must serve the public
interest and not the other way round, accusing ruling New Democracy of
using public utilities to "curry political clientele" and of failing to
introduce rules to control private interests.
According to the chief of the PPC staff trade union GENOP-DEH, Nikos
Fotopoulos, the government had failed to increase the system's
installed capacity by the required amount in order to serve these
private interests. He noted that there was an "unwritten rule" that the
installed capacity of a power grid should be 20 percent more than the
peak power load expected. During the past week this peak load had
reached 10,500MW so that installed capacity should be 13,500 MW instead
of the 11.649 MW that it was at present.
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