The resignation of Diomidis Spinellis from his post as secretary-general of the General Secretariat of Information Systems (GSIS) this week has fuelled recent rumours of infighting at the finance ministry over the thorny issue of combating tax evasion.
Spinellis, a professor in the Department of Management Science and Technology at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), director of AUEB’s Information Systems Technology Laboratory (ISTLab) as well as the lab’s Software Engineering and Security (Sense) group, said he was resigning for personal reasons.
As one of Greece’s foremost experts in software design for business applications and data security, Spinellis was put in charge of developing computer programmes for the detection of tax evasion through the cross-referencing and correlation of disparate evidence from public databases in order to track down private disposable income or property hitherto hidden from income tax declarations.
Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said last week that the ministry would release this week lists of Greece’s major tax evaders and debtors owing the state over 150,000 euros each in confirmed tax arrears.
The publication of such lists has been delayed for several months amid allegations that the government was meddling with their content on political grounds.
In an October 17 tweet, Spinellis said that his resignation had nothing to do with the delays in publishing the lists.
“We have worked very hard for the publication of these lists and the remainder will be released soon,” he wrote on Twitter. Source: Athens News