Infrastructure Min. on Corfu water supply: PPP does not mean privatization

Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis referred to the Corfu water supply system, stressing that the government is providing a solution to a decades-long pending issue, using money from the Recovery and Resilience Fund.

The Minister of Infrastructure and Transport clarified that Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects do not mean privatization. He explained that the private entity undertakes for 25, 27 or 30 years (whatever the State chooses) the maintenance and operation of the network, which then returns to the control of the State.

“Green light” for the 181 million project that will solve the water problem in Corfu

“Therefore, the private individual is exclusively a body for the construction, maintenance and operation of the infrastructure projects. This means that the project is characterized as non-remunerative for the private individual, since he will not have the right to commercial exploitation of the project”, said Mr. Karamanlis.

“We should not be under the impression that the private sector will come and increase the price of water again. This is unbelievable populism. Nor is the individual entitled to claim any annuity from the end users,” he added.

Managed by a public entity

The Minister also clarified that water management in the case of Corfu will be undertaken by a public entity. As well as that the compensation to which the private individual is entitled consists exclusively of the availability payments, which the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport will pay to him as the Contracting Authority.

“You are a party that moves in the realm of fantasy. You don’t have the political courage to say kudos that this problem is being addressed with RRF money. Do you know who gives this money? The European taxpayers, these Europeans that your leader, as Minister of Finance of SYRIZA, was watching at the Eurogroup and you are talking about diversion”, stressed Mr. Karamanlis, responding to MeRA25 MP, Mr. Arsenis.

The Minister of Infrastructure and Transport repeated to the questioning member of parliament: “We are doing these projects with money coming from the European Union, from which your leader as Minister of Finance almost succeeded in expelling us. With this money we do important projects and we have no ideologies about PPP projects.”

Finally, he emphasized that: “PPP does not mean privatization. We will get 100% of the money from the Recovery Fund, which means zero participation from national resources. The private person must construct the project within a reasonable period of time and will begin to be paid after the end of the project.”