In a post on X, Adonis Georgiades responded to what Marios Salmas claimed about the tender for hospital waste management.

The Health Minister said that, although he has chosen to position himself only through the judiciary on this particular case, he decided to intervene publicly because – as he noted – he does not wish to leave unanswered “lies” concerning his person.

In his post he refers to “six lies” on the part of Marios Salma, attributing them either to ignorance or deliberate misinformation.

Adonis Georgiades provides a series of arguments and clarifications on the tender process, attempting to refute the allegations made against him regarding the management of hospital waste.

“Lie 1. Georgiades created the contest.

The contest was not made by me. The decision for a centralized international tender was taken on 05/2023 by the competent authority (National Central Health Procurement Authority, which is an EKAA under Law 4412/16) and the tender was completed on 09/2024 after a decision of the Council of State, following an appeal by companies and a subsequent decision of a pre-contractual audit by the Court of Auditors.

Section 2. I made the specifications.

I wasn’t even the Minister of Health in 2023 when the tender was held, but even if I was, Ministers don’t make specifications. The specifications and the study that preceded it were made by hospital and institution officials (AHEPA, Alexandroupoli, 5th YPE, etc.), were put out for public consultation and then submitted to the competent body (Contracting Authority) both the economic and technical study and the specifications, which have been fully based (perhaps for the first time) on the Institutional Waste Management Framework and the new legal framework Law 4819/2021.

Section 3 All companies have entered into a joint venture.

First of all there are 7 contracts (as many as there are MPAs) and not all the companies in the area are in all the contracts, it can easily be seen from the KIMDES where all the contracts are posted (e.g. in the 7th MPA there is only 1 company and not a consortium) in common he has no idea what he is talking about.

Section 4. The prices were 700€ a tonne, i.e. 0,70 per kilo and they took it to 1.860€/tonne

The price to which he refers – misleadingly – is : price set by the price observatory (NAM processing : 0.70€). ALL tenders, up to now, have been issued for all services, i.e.: management, collection, processing, transport and other obligations. The average price of ALL tenders was around 1,95€ with typical examples: G.N.C.A. KAT:2,38€, G.N.A. Alexandra 2,25€, G.A.N. Agios Savas 1,97€. In case they made a tender only for processing (e.g. Larissa) they also made separate tenders (or even direct awards) for the other services, i.e.: collection, transport, packaging etc. with much higher final costs.

The HCPF put out a tender with a starting price of 1.50€ for all hospitals for all services and not just processing, awarded to a contractor at 1.44 but locked in for the duration of the contract (3 years)! The contracting of this tender, in addition to the contractual order it placed on the hospitals, brought a significant reduction of over 15% in the annual expenditure of the Hospitals. And it solved so many problems that now they want the other agencies (Health Centres, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Defence Hospitals) to follow the same successful formula, as they say.

Section 5. They put in beds to calculate the waste tender.

Probably had no actual duties in the Ministry of Health after all…. around the world, the size of hospitals is calculated by the number of beds, it’s data comparison figures. A hospital with 950 beds (e.g. Evangelismos) cannot produce the same waste as another hospital with 170 beds. Another data is the clinics. Therefore the volume is documented by the objective element which is beds. It is well known that in international tenders, the Court of Auditors requires detailed cost documentation (EAC), and it was the analysis that preceded the tender (with a study of all the data) that documented the costing of the contract.

Section 6. He (Georgiades…) asked that they have served equivalent beds and have a turnover equal to the value of those contracts.”