Gas company DEPA Commercial plans to adopt a remuneration and recruitment model used by power utility PPC.

But a related draft bill with provisions enabling DEPA Commercial and its affiliated companies to recruit managerial staff without hiring and salary limits must first be approved in Greek Parliament.

The draft bill cites provisions included in legislation from 2019 that paved the way for the recruitment of executives at PPC without a public sector salary cap, which had been imposed as part of Greece’s bailout agreements.

DEPA currently employs 200 managerial staff members of which just 25 are on the payroll. The rest have been employed as sub-contractors for more than ten years and are on low-level incomes as a result of the public sector salary cap.

Meanwhile, the Greek energy market has developed into a highly competitive sector offering much higher salaries in the private sector. This has prompted many DEPA staff members to leave the company for better-paid work at rival privately run firms.