Civil servant paid €280,000 while suspended and not working

A senior civil servant has been paid about €280,000 over six and a half years while on temporary leave and not working, according to the public service commission’s annual report for 2025. The employee in question received 75 per cent of his salary while criminal or disciplinary proceedings against him continue, with the total being a calculation based on that rate and the length of the leave. Only eighteen public servants were placed on temporary leave last year due to of disciplinary investigations or criminal prosecutions. Eight others stayed on leave from earlier decisions, three from 2024 and five from before then, with the commission deciding to keep them on leave until their criminal cases end. Leave ended for nine employees during the year, in certain case as investigators found no evidence to prosecute, and in others because of legal time limits or the conclusion of proceedings. The leave is not a disciplinary penalty but a preventive measure, which the commission can impose when concerning matters of public interest or a disciplinary investigation is under way. At the investigative stage it cannot exceed three months, with a possible three-month extension, while a prosecution begins, it can last until the final conclusion of the case, including an appeal. Employees must normally be heard first, in exceptional cases the leave is immediate, and they have four working days to respond in writing. The report points to the problem in two previous cases, for instance Michalis Hadjidemetriou, a former director of the central prisons, was suspended in December 2008 after a lifer, Antonis Prokopiou Kitas, known as ‘Al Capone’, escaped from a private hospital. A criminal case followed five months later, and he was sentenced to two months in prison three years after that. His 2012 appeal delayed the outcome, and the commission ordered his forced retirement almost four years later, after the supreme court rejected it, subsequently being suspended for about seven years. Louis Panayi, a former director of the pharmaceutical services, was suspended in 2005 and returned to work in early 2014, receiving an estimated €350,000 in pay during that time. He was acquitted in the drugs scandal case, received the remaining 50 per cent of his pay retroactively and was later promoted to director general of a ministry.