P. Tsakloglou: The stock of outstanding pensions has been reduced

“The progress that has been made in the issue of reducing the outstanding pensions is too great to go unnoticed”, said today the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Mr. Panos Tsakloglou, answering a topical question in the context of the parliamentary control.

Mr. Tsakloglou presented specific data on the reduction of outstanding pensions, noting the following: “As a result, despite the increased number of retirement applications in recent months, the number of main outstanding pensions (excluding international) has dropped from almost 170,000 in the summer of 2019 – including those still being discovered today.” “forgotten” in closets, drawers and bags without registration and protocol number – in just over 120 thousand today. That is, we had a reduction of the stock of outstanding pensions by about 45-50 thousand “.

As Mr. Tsakloglou pointed out, “in some former funds the de-escalation of the outstanding pensions is spectacular”, stating the following data: 2020. In the former TAN the outstanding pensions amounted to almost 2500 while today they do not exceed 700. In the former TSMEDE while in 2019 less than 100 pensions were issued per month, today the average of decisions is 250. In NAT, the average monthly maturity of the last months is 410 retirement cases per month while in the previous three years it did not exceed 190 cases per month.

Thus, while in 2017 the outstanding pensions to be granted were around 4500 and today they have been reduced by 56% “.

Also, the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs characterized as important the contribution of certified professionals for the decongestion of outstanding pensions, saying that “today the 179 who were certified are already working and last Friday the 2nd certification cycle began”. As the Management of EFKA stressed in an announcement, Mr. Tsakloglou stated, “the institution of certified collaborators has come to stay”.

Then Mr. Tsakloglou answered a second topical question concerning “LARCO”, which is in a dire financial situation for the last 35 years. As the Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs pointed out, “the government has set as its primary goal the finding of a solution in order to continue the operation of the mining company, which is important for the economy, and to save jobs”.

Regarding this issue, Mr. Tsakloglou pointed out – among other things – the following: “This is the reason why we chose the Special Management procedure, as decided by the Parliament with Law 4664/2020, ie the creation of appropriate conditions for smooth and transparent transfer of the company’s assets to a private investor – in operation.LARCO’s problems concern not only the Ministry of Labor, but also other co-responsible Ministries: both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Environment and Energy. “We achieve the goal of saving jobs, a necessary condition is to find a reliable and serious investor and until then the company remains in operation even under the status of special management”, concluded Mr. Tsakloglou.