The Greek state is increasingly turning to expensive private consultancies to provide services for the public sector.In announcing the closure of roughly a fifth of its 1,040 post office branches in October last year, the Greek postal service, ELTA, declared the move “a matter of survival”. Critics warned of the impact on vulnerable members of society and those living in remote parts of the country, already hit by the closure of bank branches and cash machines. The following month, however, Greek media outlet Avgi published a report alleging an “orgy of waste” at the struggling postal operator, amid a flurry of big money consultancy contracts. In May 2022, for example, ELTA, according to media reports, signed a 4.96-million-euro contract with the global professional services firm Price Waterhouse Coopers, PwC, for “business transformation consulting services”; three years later, PwC clinched another contract with ELTA for the “provision of financial operations management services” worth just over eight million euros. Using a platform created by the Greek non-profit Vouliwatch and data from the Central Public Contracts Register, KIMDIS, BIRN found that between 2017 and 2025, ELTA signed 81 contracts for consultancy services worth roughly 24.9 million euros. In 2017, just one such contract was signed. In 2022, there were 25. --- Original source: https://balkaninsight.com/2026/03/20/anger-in-greece-over-public-sector-outsourcing-contracts/bi/
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