A report by the National Transparency Authority has identified significant weaknesses in the country’s digital e-Adeies building permit system and serious administrative failures within the Rhodes planning office, findings that investigators said enabled improper practices in permit applications and hampered enforcement against unauthorized construction.
The audit, conducted by the authority’s Built Environment and Spatial Planning Division, examined the Rhodes planning office, which also serves Symi, Tilos, Halki and Kastellorizo, covering the period from late 2022 through late 2024.
According to the report, the e-Adeies system allowed engineers to modify information at various stages of the application process, creating conditions that favored what investigators described as a state of “semi-anarchy” in permit issuance.
The authority found a large number of applications for preliminary approval of building permits submitted before the expiration of a deadline affecting development exemptions on plots smaller than 4,000 square meters. Investigators said many of those applications were effectively empty and were filed primarily to obtain a protocol number.
The report stated that applicants uploaded documents that either failed to meet specifications, were unrelated to the application, or did not even concern the parcel for which a permit was ultimately issued. According to investigators, this was done to secure an application number within the system and preserve building rights for possible future use after legal deadlines had passed.
