EFKA to focus on bringing in revenues, not serving public
The new Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) will be an Athens-heavy superfund focusing on contribution collection and inspections for the social security system rather than serving the more than 6 million people around the country registered in it, according to the organizational charter planned by the Labor Ministry.
Provisional though this charter may be, it will determine the proper and rational operation of the new fund in the near and distant future. As social security and public administration specialists estimate, the charter will remain as it is, leaving out thousands of employees in the various social security funds nowadays: It provides just for 3,500-4,000 employees, while the funds currently employ over 8,500 people.
The administrations at the funds that will merge into EFKA as well as the ministry insist that all employees will be transferred to EFKA, but the climate of job insecurity appears to be deteriorating as the ministry has tabled an amendment providing for the precise number of the necessary staff to be determined by March 1, 2017, with all excess staff to be transferred to other state agencies up to April 1. It has even been implied that transferred staff will mainly go to the inspection mechanisms.
