Greek Dep. Energy Min. heralds intense audits for profiteering from firewood

The Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy, Giorgos Amyras, issued an order to intensify controls by the Forestry Services for the phenomenon of profiteering in the firewood market.

Due to the special conditions created this year by the energy crisis and the large price increases observed internationally in oil, natural gas and electricity, citizens are looking for alternative forms of heating by purchasing and using firewood.

The increase in demand for firewood is likely to be exploited and used for profiteering by unscrupulous merchants, who will try to create artificial shortages, in order to inflate prices.

For this reason, it is considered necessary to intensify the checks by the locally competent Forestry Services, with the aim of preventing and suppressing any criminal behavior, in cooperation with the Greek Police and the Service of the General Secretariat of Public Revenue of the Ministry of Finance.

Targeted audits

Intensive controls aim at:

– dealing with the illegal cutting of firewood either by private individuals for their own use, or by private individuals for trading, or by foreigners from neighboring countries, as well as the transportation and trafficking of illegally cut firewood.

– monitoring the activity of those involved in all stages of selling legally cut firewood, with an emphasis on the accumulation and sequestering of large undistributed quantities, thus creating an artificial shortage.

It is recalled that firewood is already available – free of charge or for a nominal fee – from the Forestry Labor Cooperatives to residents of mountainous and forested areas throughout Greece, while residents were given the opportunity, either as an organized community or individually, to cut down trees under the supervision of the forest services.