Pensions too late for 150 people
A total of 150 retired civil servants have died while waiting for Greece’s social security system to process their lump-sum pension payment. The pensioners were waiting to be paid by the civil servant’s TPDY fund, which is experiencing serious financial difficulties, like many of Greece’s other government-owned pension funds. According to press reports, 15,020 people are waiting in line for TPDY to pay them their lump-sum amount, which corresponds to a total payout of 645.8 million euros. However, the fund is only in a position to meet 50 of these applications, as cash reserves stand at 5.3 million euros and 25.3 million euros are earned each month from insured members. The conservative New Democracy government passed a law earlier this year merging scores of pensions funds into 13 and introducing incentives to stay at work longer in an attempt to save the system from collapse in about 15 years.
