Recovery of undue payments from civil servants who held a non-genuine qualification in their field of competence

On the basis of Article 28 of Law No. 4305/2014 (A΄237), departments are required to carry out a legitimacy check of all degrees, certificates and other elements of the personal register of all their employees.

Based on the circulars F.34/45/2843/2014 and F.34.1/86/oik.31792/8.12.2014 of the Ministry of Administrative Reform, the Administrative Departments of the services and bodies of the Greek public sector are obliged to register the information on the relevant authenticity checks of the qualifications of their employees on the electronic platform/application of the ΝΤΑ (https://rns.aead.gr/titloi/login.asp).

On the basis of the above, the ΝΤΑ carries out checks on the departments and bodies of the public sector, regarding their actions, following the confirmation of non-genuine qualifications of employees under their responsibility, while supervising the obligation of the Administrative Directorates to register their actions on the ΝΤΑ's platform, regarding the authenticity checks of the qualifications of their employees.

The above actions, always in cooperation between the ΝΤΑ and the competent departments and bodies, have led to significant results.

Indicatively, four (4) cases are mentioned, within a period of six (6) months, where, due to the use of non-genuine qualifications and/or supporting documents, the corresponding amounts were claimed as undue payments from the employees who used the above mentioned qualifications:

1. 12.581 € were recovered from a Ministry official as undue payments

2. From an employee of another Ministry, 139,691 € were recovered as undue payments; and

3. From two (2) employees of another Ministry, 79.924€ and 371.992€ respectively were claimed as unduly paid.

In total, the amount sought for undue payments in the four cases mentioned above is more than 600,000€.

In three of the above cases the appointment of the officials was withdrawn, while in one of them the transfer of the official was withdrawn.

The cooperation of the Hellenic Public Prosecutor's Office with the Greek public services and the checks on the authenticity of the qualifications continue as the use of non-genuine qualifications leads to negative results for the users of these qualifications, both financially and in terms of employment.