The truth about the Chania Regional Health Authority
The former president of the Chania Sports Association, Manolis Kouridakis, made very serious inaccuracies regarding the finances of the Sports Association, and also made completely unfounded accusations against the Deputy Minister of Sports, Lefteris Avgenakis, in an interview he gave on Wednesday, August 11.
Inaccuracy 1or: «"120,000 euros that the Chania Regional Office did not receive in its regular budget, in the last ten days of December 2020, is credited as an extraordinary grant to the Heraklion Regional Office."
The truth:
The regular grant of the Chania Regional Office for the year 2020 was €930,000 and was disbursed to 100% in 2020.
Mr. Kouridakis' confusion, with the additional €120,000, obviously concerns the current year, 2021, as the regular subsidy of the Chania Regional Office for 2021 increased by €120,000 and amounts to €1,050,000.
It is the first time, in fact, that the competent Deputy Minister of Sports takes into account the summary budgets submitted by each EAK and their real needs and adjusts the amounts accordingly, increasing their regular subsidies.
In previous years, from 2019 and before, all R&D centers received the same regular grant every year.
Inaccuracy 2or: «All National Sports Centers have some cash reserves. If some money has been allocated somewhere in a year and cannot be spent or reformed, at the end of the year it goes to the cash reserves. You cannot touch these unless there is the agreement of the Ministry of Finance and the Deputy Ministry of Sports. We found cash reserves of 500,000 euros. We considered them as a safety net, as a safety cushion where at some point the National Sports Center wants to do some things, with the agreement of the two ministries, some projects can be done. At the moment we have 328,000 euros blocked by courts from outgoing employees of the National Sports Center of Chania, who have irrevocably won them and have been blocked from the cash reserves of the National Sports Center..
The truth:
Even though Mr. Kouridakis has been the head of the Chania Public Health Agency administration for so long, he has not understood when and how cash reserves are used (which are created either by inefficient financial management of the regular grant or by amounts that were not absorbed by extraordinary grants at the end of the financial year).
How can they be utilized? Based on a Ministerial Decision, from November 2018, with a valid and sufficiently justified request from the EAK, stating the necessity of using the cash available and with a reform of the budget of each EAK (if it concerns an extraordinary grant amount that was not absorbed), after 1or April of next year.
Therefore, all this time, Mr. Kouridakis was wrong to consider cash reserves "as a safety net, as a safety cushion"! And in this way, there was also an incorrect approach to how a project that is in progress is launched and paid off.
At the same time, Mr. Kouridakis should be aware that when there are court decisions that have to do with compensation to third parties, the awarded amounts are blocked from cash reserves, if any.
In conclusion: Mr. Kouridakis's expected term of office was completed and his work and words were evaluated, which clearly exceeded his work. Thus, the Deputy Minister of Sports, Lefteris Avgenakis, decided, as he has the right, to replace him.
Furthermore, there will soon be a detailed update from the Deputy Ministry of Sports and the new administration of the Chania Sports and Recreation Centre on the progress of the upgrade and modernization projects of all facilities, which have been launched and are progressing. After all, these are of paramount importance for the sports family and the further sports development in Chania.