What was heard in the last few days that the station master of Larissa was a bribe is a complete lie, I have investigated it myself, Minister of Development Adonis Georgiadis said on the Kalimera show with Giorgos Autias and pledged that the government will do everything in its power to reveal the truth about the tragic accident.

He continued by saying that mobility in the State is done through an electronic platform that is public. “Mobility opened and OSE asked for 18 positions for station masters. They applied from all over the Greek public sector and the system automatically took them, as long as they met the criteria.

Then they went through the competent committee of the OSE, they were deemed suitable and they were sent for training, there was no need to bribe anyone.”

He added that the training did not last only 15 days, “these are all lies. All went through training for 7 months, six days a week, 7 hours a day. The education and file of each one has been handed over to RAS, which controls them. We are not dealing with bribery.”

When asked who put the particular station master in Larissa, Mr. Georgiadis replied: “He was put in Larissa with his signature by the regional director of the OSE, obviously he will be questioned by the prosecutor.”

Continuing, he spoke about the systems and their operation at the specific station: “The Larissa station had sophisticated technology to protect against mistakes. Everything was working. This man has a huge screen in front of him, when he put the train on the wrong track, it lit a red line in front of him and it flashed a red light and it flashed a sound telling him that he is on the wrong track. For 12.5 minutes he did not understand the mistake”.

“I don’t think it was inside the station, it can’t be otherwise, and the screen was working and the lights and all the systems were working. It was not the case of a station where the systems were broken,” added Mr. Georgiadis.

He also said that there has always been one station master in Larissa and reiterated that the idea that we had a disbanded station is not true.

“This particular station master made a lot of mistakes, if he was there, I believe he wasn’t there,” he said.

Regarding the telematics system, he said that today only three countries have a complete one, “on September 30 we will become the 4th country to have it”.

The Minister of Development added: “I swear to you the government has run a long way, we received it from SYRIZA dead, frozen, that’s why the minister of SYRIZA, Mr. Spirtzis has not appeared. SYRIZA’s attempt to take advantage of the issue politically is shameful, because it received a contract from the Samara government and handed us a dead contract in 2019.”

All this does not negate the responsibilities, said Mr. Georgiadis, we were not indifferent as a government, there is no way we will not do everything in our power to let the world know the truth, we will tear ourselves apart, we will do everything. This is a commitment, it is a matter of honor, he emphasized.

Finally, he said: “We must not let pain fill society with poison. Is it time to let everyone threaten? They step on pain and loss to spew venom.”