A relevant alternate finance minister on Monday submitted documents, in reply to a tabled question in Parliament, reportedly showing the extent of an intractable problem that has been the scourge of the modern Greece state since its inception: the appropriate of state lands.
Minister Tryfon Alexiadis presented figures and data showing that in Attica prefecture (the greater Athens area) alone, the percentage of public owned lands illegally appropriated by third parties reaches a whopping 80 percent.
Beyond the greater Athens area, the percentages of appropriated public lands range from 47 to 70 percent.
The alternate minister’s response was based, as he wrote, on files retained by the regional directorate for public assets for Attica prefecture, and affects land described as “partially” or “completely” appropriated.
Alexiadis’ reply came in answer to a tabled question by ND deputy and former minister Evangelos Basiakos.
Greece remains one of the very few countries in the developed world without a digitalized, unified and functional land registry (cadastre), even though some progress has been made in recent years towards building a land registry, mostly targeting specific sites in the country instead of a one-off approach for the entire territory.
