EFKA reclaims erroneous payments
It has been discovered that more than 23 million euros was erroneously paid out to 7,600 pensioners, mostly retired military officers, and now the Single Social Security Fund (EFKA) is claiming it back.
From the end of this month, the fund will withhold amounts equal to a third of some 1,200 recipients’ pensions, while about 6,400 former military officers will see their pensions reduced from end-January. Those who have incorrectly received more than 5,000 euros will receive letters from EFKA.
Sources say that the error occurred when affected individuals received their first monthly pension along with retroactive payments in December 2018 or May 2019, as the amount paid to them in the form of a temporary benefit until their definitive pension was issued was not deducted as it should have been.
In total, the cash wrongly paid out to 6,410 retired military officers in December 2018 added up 19.36 million euros, the Labor Ministry said, while another 8.25 million was erroneously paid to 1,526 EFKA pensioners in May 2019. Some 4.2 million of that has been retrieved.
Minister Yiannis Vroutsis stated on Wednesday that five months after taking over at the ministry he still keeps running into “primitive situations,” facing series errors and omissions of the past that had neither been reported or resolved.
