The civil service in Greece

A not-so-amusing analysis from the BBC Online:

On Planet Greece, some civil servants get a bonus for turning up to work on time. Foresters get a bonus for working outdoors. At least they show up.

There are civil servants called ghost workers because they never go into the office, head to a second job and still claim a state salary. They can’t get sacked, because a civil service post is for life. Unless the incumbent decides to retire in his or her forties, with a pension.

And the government can continue paying for the afterlife. Unmarried and divorced daughters of civil servants are entitled to collect their dead parents pensions. Another lucrative sinecure is to belong to a state committee. The government has no idea how many there are.

It has been estimated that they have 10,000 employees and cost nearly £200m a year, and that includes the committee to manage a lake that dried up 80 years ago.

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