Calamos Supports Greece
GreekReporter.comGreek NewsCrimeGreece Still Paying Dead Pensioners

Greece Still Paying Dead Pensioners

Send the checks here
Send the checks here

Despite repeated investigations into fraudulent pensions, Greece is still paying 2,260 dead people, more than six months after the benefits were supposed to have been stopped, said Allternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras.
A census by the Finance Ministry said that accounted for more than 35.8 million euros ($47.7 million) during a crushing economic crisis when pensions have been cut, along with big pay cuts and tax hikes as part of austerity measures being imposed by the government on the orders of international lenders in return for $325 billion in two bailouts.
The government said 21 million euros ($28 million) has been recovered as people who were found to have defrauded the state are being asked to return the monies they received, although there was no information on whether anyone was being prosecuted for committing a crime. It has been common in Greece for families of pensioners not to report their deaths so that the checks will keep coming.
The Ministry has presented the results of the inspection which started a year ago. Staikouras said de-listing of deceased from the lists of pensioners saves the state budget 865,888 euros ($1.15 million) a month. Greece’s pension system is notorious for inefficiency as it can take up to a year or more for pensioners to receive benefits.
They are not allowed to work in the meantime or face forfeiture of benefits, resulting in some find work to be paid under-the-table so they can survive, depriving the government of tax revenues.
To ease that problem the government is moving toward paying pensioners 65 percent of their monthly salary until the benefits kick in.  Staikouras said that 4,752 employees who had retired in March received the partial payment this month. There’s been a rush to retire as well, with the number of pensioners who filed jumping from 264 in June to 1,126 in July.
Earlier this year, the Labor Ministry found that 9,371 pensions being paid to the widows and unmarried daughters of civil servants who have died are suspicious and started to cross-check the pensions against other records. At that time it was believed that 8 percent of all pensions paid were going to the families of the dead.
In 2011, it was reported that Greece was paying pensions to 4,500 dead and then as well to 40,000 fraudulent claimants who were being asked to return the money but not prosecuted, even though they had been stealing from the state for more than 20 years in some cases.
Pension fraud has been rampant in Greece for generations without much attempt by the government to stop it. Reuters reported earlier this year  that claimants getting checks for people who were dead were raking in more than $20.9 million a year, and that more than 9,000 people who said they were more than 100 years old were being paid too.

See all the latest news from Greece and the world at Greekreporter.com. Contact our newsroom to report an update or send your story, photos and videos. Follow GR on Google News and subscribe here to our daily email!



Related Posts