B. Infrastructure Facilities - Living conditions During the past two years, the country has not managed to use all the available, mainly European, funds. Indicatively, in 2015 there was zero use of the scheduled financing of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), which includes actions for the improvement of the living conditions, while in 2016 only 2% of the assigned funds were used.145 Financing This is due, among other things, to the financing gap created from July 2015 up to part of 2016, when the establishment of the Service for the management of the European Asylum - Reception and Integration Programmes of the Ministry of Interior (Article 9(6) et seq. of Law 4332/2015) was followed by a series of delays in the issue of the necessary regulatory acts and the procedures for the staffing and certification of the unified managing authority. Law 4375/2016 transferred the competence for the management of the programmes from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism (April 2016), a fact that caused new delays. Aiming at the effective coordination, supervision and acceleration of the actions of the Ministry of Economy and the involved agencies for the use of the emergency support funds, intended for the management of the migration flows, a Special Secretariat was instituted for the Coordination and Management of the programmes of AMIF and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) and other funds at the Ministry of Economy (Articles 75 and 76 of Law 4375/2016). Moreover, the Department for the Implementation of Reception Programmes of the Directorate of Reception of the Ministry of Migration Policy is responsible, among other things, for ensuring the cohesion and complementarity between the cofinancing contributions of the national and EU programmes, and those covered by other national, EU and private financing means (Article 27(2d) of Law 4375/2016). By force of Ministerial Decision No. 100746-29/09/2016/16 (Government Gazette Β 3266/11-10-2016), a committee was set up for monitoring the National Programme of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the National Programme of the Internal Security Fund for the 2014-2010 period. Finally, under Article 65(1) of Law 4403/2016, part of the competence for drawing up and submitting the payment requests was assigned to the Special Service 145 Annual Report of the National Programme of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund 2016, Table 3. 46 “Certification and Verification Authority of the Co-financed Programmes” of the General Secretariat for Public Investments and NSRF. The existence of multiple involved agencies appears to hinder instead of accelerate the procedures for the use of the EU funding. The use of the funds from the emergency financing of the European Union (DG Home) appears to be better. In total, 178 million euros have been approved for the involved ministries and an equivalent amount for the UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO). Finally, the European Commission, in the context of the Emergency Support Instrument (DG ECHO), also dedicated emergency funds to the humanitarian organisations operating in the country for meeting the basic living needs of the refugees (the amount of 198 million euro has been announced in total). As agreed between the competent Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management and the Greek Alternate Minister for Migration Policy at the time, a priority of the additional financing is the improvement of existing shelters and construction of new ones in the camp facilities ahead of the upcoming winter. At the same time improvement of sanitation conditions and provision of other infrastructure such as heating.146 However, judging from the considerable difficulties encountered by a large number of people residing in a number of sites across Greece in the winter of 2016-2017, this target was not met in all the cases, a fact that appears to be due to the lack of effective cooperation between the competent agencies (in more detail, see Chapter E1.2.). According to Article 19 of Law 4375 /2016: Legal entities governed by Public Law, local and regional authorities (LRAs) of the 1st and 2nd degree, within whose administrative boundaries operate the First Reception Centers (FRCs), Reception and Identification Centers (RICs) and Open Facilities for the Temporary Reception and Accommodation of refugees and migrants or have spaces for meeting emergency housing and temporary accommodation needs for refugees and migrants, The roles of the local and regional authorities (LRAs) 146 See relevant Press Release of the European Commission on 10.9.2016.