The current Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis, referred to the problems of underfunding, reduced staff, functionality and safety that the Greek railway had at the time (6/2013-1/2015) that the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks took over. in the context of his examination, as a witness, by the Parliament’s Investigative Committee for “the investigation of the crime of Tempe”.

Answering his question MP of the majority, L. Tsavdaridis about the problems of the railway, when he took over in 2013, and in particular about the effects of the reduction of the staff of the OSE by about 50%, Mr. Chrysochoidis said that he faced – in the heart of the memorial years – several problems. He said that there had been massive cuts (redeployments) in staff – mainly in the OSE, that there was a serious funding issue and operational issues and that the network was very insecure.

He even referred to the effort, which began in 2010, for the total restructuring (signaling and remote control) of the damaged network and for the construction of projects that for many years were pending and not built, sometimes due to the bankruptcy of construction companies.

As he said characteristically, the condition of the network was very bad, there were sporadic minor accidents and an attempt was being made to find a way to maintain the network as the OSE did not have the staff and funding to do so. He also pointed out that he used to call every 20-30 days the heads of the railway organizations to keep them alert on the security issues of the network.

To her question MP of PASOK M. Apostolakis regarding the position he would take if he received a document from the Transparency Authority in the confidential protocol of the ministry, Mr. Chrysochoidis said that these are referred to competently at the discretion of the ministers and each competent person does his job.

To his question MP of KKE N. Karathanasopoulos about the factors that led to the Tempe train accident, Mr. Chrysochoidis said he does not want to take a position on a matter that is being investigated by the Justice Department. As he added, the railway always had manuals and safety rules, even when there was no remote control, while he noted that accidents have occurred even with complete systems, in operation, in advanced European countries, because “it is a multifactorial issue”.

At the beginning of today’s meeting, the chairman of the examining committee D. Markopoulos apologized for his report yesterday, on the occasion of the replacement of two members of the committee by Messrs. St. Petsa and M. Lazaridis: “Obviously, it was a mistake of the moment, without excuses”, said Mr. Markopoulos about his following sentence: “To make a little humor, our Committee is a bit of a slob! Two of our very good and worthy colleagues, Mr. Andreas Nikolakopoulos and Mrs. Ioanna Lytrivi, were made ministers.”