Greek telephone firm cuts off PM's house
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Greek telecom engineers cut off the telephone line to the Prime Minister's house while attempting to disconnect a customer who was behind in payments.
The Athens phone number of the customer in arrears was the same as that of George Papandreou's home number save for one digit, the telecoms company OTE said.
Many Greeks are struggling to pay their bills as the government cuts wages and raises taxes to try to pay off the country's huge debt. Mr Papandreou's phone was cut off on the same day that a deadline fell for Greece to repay a 10-year bond worth €8.5bn (£7bn), using the first instalment of a €110bn rescue package from the EU and IMF.
OTE is 20 per cent owned by the state. OTE's chairman wrote a letter to Mr Papandreou to explain the mistake and engineers went to his house immediately after they were informed of the problem.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments