Public Administration General Inspector Leandros Rakintzis on Monday revealed to the ANA-MPA that he had drawn up a list of 1,540 public-sector employees whose names were linked to cases of corruption, while a further 500 had already been found guilty of corruption by the courts.

According to Rakintzis, several of the offences involved were serious, such as embezzlement, forging public documents or taking bribes, and carried more than just disciplinary penalties.

Supreme Court Prosecutor Ioannis Tentes, on his part, announced that he had sent out a circular asking justices to speed up the processing of the above cases. Meanwhile, a copy of the list has been sent by Rakintzis to public sector disciplinary bodies so that they can take the appropriate action.

Those found guilty will face tougher sanctions than before, based on changes in disciplinary rules for the public sector about to be introduced by Interior Minister Yiannis Ragoussis.

Among others, the more than 2,000 employees involved will no longer be eligible for promotions and will face a significant reduction in pay, even if they are not fired or suspended from duty. They will also not be eligible for the productivity bonus to be introduced under the new wage scale system. Furthermore, those working in agencies or organisations that are to be abolished or merged are very likely lose their jobs, since one of the assessment criteria for their transfer to another service will be whether disciplinary action has been taken against them for corruption.

Rakintzis told the ANA-MPA that he had asked for a meeting with the prime minister in order to present his annual report for the year 2010 and he welcomed the intervention of the Supreme Court prosecutor as positive, noting that he had had several meetings with Tentes for this reason.