Summer Olympics 2000 Fragile truce crumbles as 2004 official is dismissed

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Wednesday, October 18
Fragile truce crumbles as 2004 official is dismissed
Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece -- Less than 24 hours after declaring a fragile truce, Premier Costas Simitis fired a senior Athens 2004 official for trading insults with a government minister over control of major construction projects for the Olympics.

Simitis fired Costas Liaskas, a 2004 executive director. Liaskas, an engineer and former public works minister, is president of the Technical Chamber of Commerce of Greece.

"Good luck to those who are continuing," Liaskas said afterward.

In an effort to smother the crisis, Athens 2004 head Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki also demanded Liaskas' resignation after his public exchange of thinly veiled insults with Public Works Minister Costas Laliotis.

Laliotis does not want 2004 organizers to hire advisers who will have direct involvement in building the venues for yachting, rowing and canoeing, the equestrian center, softball and baseball, and badminton and fencing.

He told Athens' Flash radio that the 2004 advisers should be allowed only to monitor the construction timetable and ensure the venues meet Olympic standards. Athens 2004 officials want to hire their own technical advisers, who would have direct oversight of the construction.

"The minister talked about an issue of policy and ethics. There really is an issue of policy and ethics, but one which has to do with the behavior of the minister, who told us from the first minute that he could not tolerate us having advisers," Liaskas told Flash. "I must say that he acts with his own rules, and not the rules that he must behave with as a minister who has a huge executive power."

In a sign of the growing chasm, Laliotis had told reporters that "the works and days of Mr. Liaskas at 2004 leave me frigidly indifferent."

Laliotis has been criticized recently for alleged delays in some of the roadwork that traffic-congested Athens must have ready for the Summer Games. That project includes ring roads around the capital and a highway to the new international airport.

During a five-hour meeting on Tuesday between organizers and the government, Laliotis promised to speed up construction of the Olympic venues, a key demand by the IOC.

Greece previously said the projects would be ready by May 2004, but the IOC wants them done by the end of 2003. About 30 percent of the facilities have not been built.

The government said a new construction timetable will be ready by Nov. 22, when an IOC inspection team headed by Jacques Rogge is to visit Athens. It was not clear if the dispute would affect the timetable.

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