Rhodes: emergency hiring of 30 lifeguards

The Municipality of Rhodes is moving to the emergency hiring of thirty lifeguards, following the objection raised by the Court of Audit to the contract for lifeguard cover of the island’s busiest beaches for the period 2026-2028. According to Dimokratiki of Rhodes, the 39th extraordinary session of the Municipal Committee has been set for Thursday 20 August at 10:00, with a single item on the agenda: the launch of a procedure to hire thirty employees of the ΔΕ Lifeguards grade. The hiring is based on article 206 of Law 3584/2007, which allows fixed-term contracts to meet urgent needs, and rests on recommendation no. 46710/18-08-2026. The justification for the urgency states that “the matter is considered urgent owing to the objection to the contract… and for the protection of the bathers of our island.”

Alongside the hiring procedure, the municipality is also taking legal action. As Rodiaki reports, a lawyer has been appointed to file an appeal against the objection, so as to seek its lifting and the ratification of the original contract. These are essentially two parallel routes: one secures staff within the coming days, the other attempts to restore the long-term solution of the three-year contract. As context and not as a causal link, it is noted that on the same day the Court of Audit Commissioner also blocked a contract worth 992,000 euros of the DEYAR for desalination units at Kattavia and Lachania, a case entirely different in subject matter.

Lifeguard cover is not an optional service but an institutional obligation of municipalities for beaches designated as busy, with specifications covering the number of lifeguard towers, the equipment and the hours of supervision. On an island with an extensive coastline and the largest tourist concentration in the Dodecanese, the gap in supervision in mid-August coincides with peak traffic, when the beaches receive the largest number of bathers of the year. The preventive audit by the Court of Audit, on the other hand, is an institutional safeguard for the legality of public contracts and is exercised before signature, precisely so that expenditure later judged unlawful is not carried out. The two logics, of immediate safety and of formal audit, often clash in contracts of a seasonal nature.

The next step is the decision of the Municipal Committee on Thursday 20 August and, if it is approved, the announcement and rapid hiring of the thirty lifeguards, who must hold a valid lifeguard licence. It has not become known how many beaches remained without cover in the intervening period, nor how long the new contracts will last. The outcome of the appeal is also pending, which will determine whether the island will have stable three-year cover or whether the tender will be repeated. The issue directly concerns the safety of bathers and is linked to the functioning of local society at the height of the tourist season, while it also highlights the relationship between municipalities and the audit mechanisms of justice.