Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said he was authorised by the country's prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, to come up with an emergency plan for a parallel payment system, which could lead the country to the drachma, according to a recording of a call with investors released on Monday.
Mr Varoufakis spoke to the investors on July 16th, 10 days after he resigned. The recording was released with his approval and in the interest of transparency, according to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, which describes itself as an independent platform for dialogue.
Details were first reported by Kathimerini newspaper on Sunday.
“We were planning to create, surreptitiously, reserve accounts attached to every tax file number, without telling anyone, just to have this system in a function under wraps,” Mr Varoufakis said in the recording.
The former minister did not respond to an e-mail and a text message seeking comment, and calls to his mobile phone were not answered.
Responding to the paper’s article on Sunday, Mr Varoufakis said on Twitter: “So, I was going to “hijack’’ Greek citizens’ tax file numbers? Impressed by my defamers’ imagination.”
Mr Varoufakis said on the call that he appointed a childhood friend of his at the ministry to help him carry out his plan, adding that it would still need final approval from Mr Tsipras.
“We were ready to get the green light from the PM when the banks closed in order to move,” he said.
Listen to full recording here.
Bloomberg