High-profile bodies among those with debts to funds
Debts to social security funds add up to 11 billion euros, according to Labor Minister Giorgos Koutroumanis, with newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, state corporations, embassies and political parties among those that owe money.
More than half of that amount, or 6.2 billion euros, is owed to the Social Security Foundation (IKA), which is hoping to reel in some 1.15 billion euros by the end of the year via the forced collection procedure for outstanding debts a very ambitious target indeed given the composition of the debts list. Last year the amount of old debts collected reached 940 million euros.
Apart from the money owed to IKA, the Self-Employed Pension Fund (OAEE) is waiting for some 3.7 billion euros and the rest is owed to smaller funds, Koutroumanis told a permanent social security monitoring committee in Athens on Thursday.
Among the bodies which have held back from taking part in the process for the favorable settlement of outstanding debts is the Greek state itself, which is currently refusing to pay its dues of over 41 million euros, unlike over 37,000 companies that have entered the process for debts adding up to 843 million euros.
The bulk of debts to IKA are owed by private enterprises, with over 101,000 refusing to enter the settlement process for amounts covering 45 percent of debts to the fund, or some 3 billion euros, Koutroumanis said.
