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Pensioners sue Labor Minister over excessive delays in awarding pensions

A suit to the Prosecutor of the District Court of Athens was tendered by ENDYSIS (United Pensioners Network), against the leadership of the Ministry of Labor and minister Efi Achitsoglou and the administrators of the social security fund EFKA and the Unified Auxiliary Fund, denouncing that the pensions are not intentionally paid by the government so it cancreate a very high surplus to show lenders.

The Ministry of Labor responds that the cost of outstanding pensions is taken into account in the surplus, which is reported reaching € 1.4 billion by the end of 2018, compared with a surplus of € 777 million in its first year of operation.

According to ETEAEP it will close books in 2018 with a surplus of € 100 million in the auxiliary insurance fund and € 1.2 billion in the one off payments.

As pointed out in the petition, pending pensions and lump sums amount to 180,000, resulting in many retirees being in dire financial conditions.

The delay in the award of pensions is not only due to a malfunctioning of the bodies responsible for the award of pensions but to the feasibility of the political leadership of the Ministry of Labor which poses enormous problems to those who await the award of a pension in order to create a supersurplus to show lenders.

According to ENDISY, the delay in decision-making has so far reached 27 months for main pensions and up to six years for auxiliary pensions and despite constant out-of-court complaints to the competent services, no definitive decisions have been taken so far.

The Ministry of Labor, responding to the Unified Network, accuses its representatives of attempting to challenge surpluses with inaccurate data on the settlement of outstanding pensions. It also clarifies that the liquidation and payment of all outstanding claims for a main pension is taken into account in the pension expense and the final EFKA surplus for 2018.