OPEKEPE has issued its own statement regarding the developments at OPEKEPE and the involvement of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office in a response to “Manifesto,” the company Cognitera.
The newspaper reached out to the chairman of the board of directors, Panagiotis Papadopoulos with a series of questions, giving the company the opportunity to respond to the allegations and evidence that have come to light in recent months, as well as the case of criminal organization in which, according to announcements by the Greek FBI, specific KYDs appear to be involved.
“The investigation of potential criminal or administrative violations is the exclusive responsibility of judicial, auditing, and law enforcement authorities, not of companies. Until the investigations are completed and the relevant court decisions are issued, all parties involved must respect the presumption of innocence, as we have recently witnessed the targeted implicating of various individuals and companies in the massive OPEKEPE scandal, with the obvious aim of diverting public opinion from the true epicenter of the scandal—namely, central political decisions—as well as to shift the blame through media spin,” the company responds in writing, while in response to the question of whether they have requested information from shareholders or their affiliated companies regarding the involvement of their executives, employees, or associates in the aforementioned cases, it notes:
“The management of Cognitera S.A. is closely monitoring all cases related to the OPEKEPE scandal while at the same time diligently fulfilling its contractual obligations toward AADE regarding a number of critical outstanding issues, such as the launch of the EAE 2026 platform and the payment of subsidies by the end of June 2026. At the same time, like all stakeholders and companies in the sector, it must respect the presumption of innocence until the relevant court decisions are finalized. But under no circumstances will it allow anyone to drag it into “journalistically’’ with the obvious aim of diverting public opinion from the true focus of the scandal—namely, central political decisions—as well as the media “offset” of responsibilities, and will protect its interests and reputation by every legal means.” In its own way, the company avoids answering whether it conducted an internal audit, referring the matter to the competent authorities.
To the obvious question “what measures have you taken or do you intend to take to ensure that there is no direct or indirect influence by individuals under criminal investigation on projects involving OPEKEPE?” refers to the general measures followed by the company, noting: “Cognitera implements a comprehensive corporate governance and internal control system, which is supported by certified management systems and regularly audited by independent accredited certification bodies. It implements specific corporate governance, regulatory compliance, and information security procedures, which ensure that access to the company’s information, systems, and projects is granted exclusively to authorized persons and only to the extent necessary for the performance of their duties.
“In this context, the company operates under certified management systems for quality (ISO 9001), information security (ISO/IEC 27001), business continuity (ISO 22301), and anti-bribery (ISO 37001), while implementing procedures for the segregation of duties, access control, activity logging, and risk management.
“In addition, for every employee, executive, or external partner participating in OPEKEPE projects, the Declarations of Confidentiality and Protection of Official Information (SDEPY) as required by the contracting authority, while access to information systems and project data is granted exclusively based on specific roles and authorizations.
“Consequently, the execution of projects undertaken by the company is based on established and controlled procedures and not on personal or shareholder relationships of any natural or legal person.”
With regard toregarding Cognitera’s shareholder structure and the possibility that the simultaneous participation of KYDs or companies managing KYDs in the share capital of OPEKEPE’s technical consultant could create conflicts, given that the KYDs provide services to farmers that are directly linked to the information systems and procedures supported by the technical consultant, refer to current legislation and emphasize that “Cognitera’s ownership structure is completely transparent, registered in the relevant public registries, and known to the contracting authorities in the context of public procurement procedures.
When the company participates in competitive bidding processes and prior to the conclusion of the relevant contracts, all supporting documents required by law are submitted regarding its legal status, its shareholding structure, its beneficial owners, and the absence of grounds for exclusion.
”Consequently, OPEKEPE had full knowledge of the company’s shareholding structure at the time of the award and execution of the relevant contracts.
»Furthermore, the implementation of projects undertaken by Cognitera is carried out exclusively by authorized executives and associates of the company, who are bound by specific confidentiality and data protection obligations. Access to information systems, data, and project operations is granted solely on the basis of job role and authorization and is not linked to any shareholder status.
”The company implements corporate governance, regulatory compliance, and information security, which ensure a clear separation between its shareholder structure and the fulfillment of its contractual obligations.
»If the legislature or the contracting authority determines in the future that stricter participation criteria or specific conflict-of-interest rules are required for these specific contracts, Cognitera will be the first to support the implementation of clear and uniform rules for all participants. Until then, the company is obligated—and always ensures—full compliance with the applicable regulatory framework and the terms set forth in each tender process,” while it is maintained that “Cognitera’s shareholder structure is not unknown to OPEKEPE” within the context of “the procedures provided for by public procurement law.”
Regarding the 2022 Single Aid Application and the contracts awarded to the company, the background of the period is outlined to conclude: “We responded technologically—with successful results—to this technological upgrade to G-CLOUD and alignment with the rest of gov.gr, as requested by KtP to be implemented ALSO in OPEKEPE’s obsolete systems.”
They add that the contracts with KtP S.A. “concerned software licenses (and not source code, as certain circles are deliberately leaking, failing to correlate the obvious subject matter with the cost) in order to collect the 2022 Annual Agricultural Income Declarations (EAE) and to make advance payments for basic aid, basic aid settlement, greening, support for young farmers, the first installment of agri-environmental payments, and the first installment of compensatory payments—for the FIRST TIME amid the government’s uncertainty, in accordance with Joint Ministerial Decisions 1573/April 14, 2022, and 1844/October 3, 2022,” and that “the implementation of the 2022 Single Aid Application system was delivered in full and operational within the contractual deadlines and constituted one of the most significant digital technological reforms of theOPEKEPE’s systems, as confirmed by KtP S.A. as the competent contracting authority.”
“As required, the payment software also had to run on the government cloud (rather than on the outdated legacy systems of previous years that were hosted on private companies’ infrastructure) in accordance with the relevant Joint Ministerial Decisions that had been issued—again within the framework of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministries of Rural Development and Digital Governance, we were once again asked by KtP S.A. to develop the OPEKEPE payment software.
We successfully implemented this reform as well, and advance payments for basic aid, basic aid settlements, greening payments, support for young farmers, the first installment of agri-environmental payments, and the first installment of compensatory payments,” the report notes.
Regarding the 6.3% error rate that led to a fine of 126.6 million euros, Cognitera responds: “The technological soundness of a software platform delivered according to the contracting authority’s specific specifications is one thing; the legality and correctness of the payments—which were and remain the exclusiveinstitutional responsibility of OPEKEPE.
The assessment of the legality of payments and the imposition of any financial corrections fall under the jurisdiction of European and national audit authorities. The role of the technical consultantand the technology provider is limited to the development and support of information systems and did not include responsibilities for making decisions regarding the audit of beneficiaries or the approval of payments.
”Furthermore, it has been widely accepted that the root cause and a key factor in the scandal involving OPEKEPE was the allocation of the National Reserve, which did not include livestock, with public pastures being encroached upon by opportunists, far from their place of residence,” while a relevant diagram is cited to support the claim that “the allocation of the National Reserve to pastures (many of which have no livestock) began at 470,039 stremmata for the 2017 applications and increased in 2019 to 670.125 stremmata and skyrocketed in 2020 to 1,569,616 stremmata!
Meanwhile, during the application period for the calendar year 2022 (fiscal year 2023), it dropped to just 48,707 stremmas! This is the calendar year in which, with technical support from Cognitera , applications were submitted via gov.gr using the new software developed and provided to OPEKEPE by Cognitera “.
Nowhere in the company’s responses is there a description of the interoperability mechanism between the new EAE 2022 and the information system for controls and payments, while the key technical question remains essentially unanswered: Which information system was used to perform the cross-checks and make payments for the 2022 OSDE?
The full questionnaire and responses will be posted at tomanifesto.gr
