ATHENS – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke on Tuesday at an event held at the OAKA sports centre in Marousi to present a plan on making use of Olympic Properties. The prime minister pointed out that the water in the OAKA swimming pools had until recently been green, whereas it was now again blue, and emphasised that the government had created an overall plan focusing on OAKA but also the other facilities “that were languishing and deserted”.

Referring to the ongoing projects he said they were a smaller aspect of an overall project that is beginning to bear fruit.

“We had an overall plan and vision, that’s why the project is being implemented,” he said, adding that he cares about amateur athletes who should be able to use the infrastructure built with Greek taxpayers’ money. The prime minister referred to the cooperation with the private sector and said that “we managed to mobilise all the financial tools we had at our disposal, we cooperated with the private sector, and there is a total of around 100 million euros for the reconstructions.”

He said that, among others, 54 million euros will be given by the Recovery Fund and another 15 million by Lamda Development, as well as 7 million from a consortium that will rebuild the tennis centre, and from other companies.

“Greece currently has two tennis players who are in the top five worldwide but it does not have a facility to host a major event,” said the prime minister.

He added that public and private resources allowed the government to present the results of this work, which included the first swimming pool for people with special needs “because we want the spaces to be accessible to all our fellow citizens. A large part of the Recovery Fund will go to facility maintenance projects”.