EFKA mobilizes its retirees
The Labor Ministry and the Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) are resorting to the mobilization of the latter’s retired experienced officials who have departed from the crucial departments for pension issues and processing social security demands, as the problem of outstanding applications has grown considerably, much to the dismay of pensioners.
In a bill tabled by the Health Ministry late on Thursday and expected to be voted into law in the next few days, there is a bunch of measures included that are aimed at reducing the waiting time for the issue of pending pensions – while, for the new applications, the “Atlas” plan is gradually expanding, within schedule.
Besides the retired EFKA officials being called back in, some other employees will likely be transferred to the fund from the civil service or even outside the general government sector; these are experts in pension issues, and may also include employees of scientific entities or chambers, in the hope that they can contribute toward clearing the backlog of more than 300,000 outstanding pension applications.
The bill specifically allows the EFKA director to ask retired employees of the fund to return if they are familiar with pension issuing procedures so as to boost its personnel in this department. This will be done with eight-month project-specific contracts that will not be renewable.
Their salary will be determined by ministerial decision, while these retired officials will be exempt – for the duration of their contract – from the pension cuts that other pensioners who continue to work are subject to.
Sources say there is limited interest on the part of retired employees, and quite a few of them say that they themselves still haven’t received their pensions yet, due to the absence of the necessary software.
Therefore the bill also provides for the transfer of permanent employees from the civil service or other entities to EFKA, as long as they are familiar with pension issues; they will be granted six-month contracts.
