By Yannis Anifantis

No Minister can bypass OPECEPE’s administration to do something with a committed VAT, the former OPECEPE Vice President said, Yiannis Kourdis in his deposition with the House Inquiry Committee.

The witness, who served as Vice President from January 2024 to January 2025, stressed that was not requested to the then head of the organization, Kyriakos Babasidis to release VATadding that even if individual intervention is made “For a single -digit number, it doesn’t matter because the next check will be found again, and when it is found it will be committed and described as unnecessary.”

Indeed, answering opposition MPs questions about his controversial conversations – included in the European Prosecutor’s case – where he appears to seek help for 2 leader programs, he replied that this was about institutional intervention: “When there was a folder that had been lacking for months, they were calling for him to ask about him. “

Sources of New Democracy, commented that “In an absolute and categorical way, the former Vice President of OPEKEPE Ioannis Kourdis, dismissed the opposition’s narrative of intervention of ministers to agricultural allowances Rejecting any hypothetical scenario, with clear arguments. ” The same sources pointed out that the witness “He appeared categorical about the payment process, stating that there is no possible intervention of a minister as the opposition claims. Mr. Kourdis was just as clear about the committed Taxes stating that There is not a single “window” that allows any political intervention. “

By Harilaou Trikoupi, however, it is noted that Mr. Kourdis confirmed the dismantling of OPECEPE. “During the examination of former OPEKEPE Vice President Ioannis Kourdis of the former Minister of Rural Development and Food, Mr. Avgenakis for this position without having any prior knowledge at all and experience in the agricultural sector continued The effort of the New Democracy government and its authorities in the organization to obscure the truth revealed by the case file of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and to The OPECEPE scandal is disseminated‘, It is emphasized by the same sources.

“This is the face of the” blue “agents who, in good cooperation with their politicians, have set up the loot in European subsidies by turning OPECEPE into a tool for manipulation and service of their interests”underlined by Koumoundourou, recalling that Mr Kourdis was placed in the organization by Mr. Avgenakis.