The 145,000 affected who will receive retroactive benefits

of Dimitris Katsaganis

The green light for the payment of insurance benefits (seasonal benefits and cash benefits) to up to 145,000 victims is lit by the imminent completion of the settlement of contributions for the year 2020 to the above number of employees who made unilateral statements to the Ministry of Labor to receive the special compensation of 534 euros.

It is recalled that for these workers (especially in tourism and culture), the state not only paid compensation as they were affected by the pandemic, but also covered the contributions that would be due to them.

According to an announcement by EFKA on November 16, the settlement of the contributions on the compensations of the aforementioned affected employees will be completed and thus the way will be opened for the payment of the insurance benefits, to which they are entitled.

More specifically, the relevant procedure concerns specifically:

-108,000 approximately seasonal employees with the right of compulsory re-employment (tourism, catering, etc.)

-22,364 artists, creators and art professionals, tour guides and tour guides

-12 employees with termination of contract to companies – employers affected by the Mediterranean cyclone “Janos” and the consequent floods of 18 and 19 September 2020.

According to an announcement by EFKA, the submission of the Detailed Periodic Statements took a long time as it was a very big project undertaken by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs for the first time during a difficult period, due to the special conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic.

The files were extensively processed and special software was developed for the formatting of the Detailed Periodic Statements (APD) as until recently the Ministry had not submitted statements of similar size and content and there was no relevant know-how in its services.

As part of the process, a large number of inspections and cross-checks of the files of the information system “Ergani” with those of EFKA were carried out, in order to identify the insured persons who received the special purpose compensation.

Finally, during the electronic submission of the DPAs to EFKA, checks of the correctness of their content are carried out and any detected incorrect entries are corrected and resubmitted, resulting in a long time to integrate the insurance data of the Detailed Periodic Statements (DPA system). of e-EFKA.

The process of submitting the DPAs of the above categories of insured with an Insured Registration Number for all months of 2020 has been completed. At the present stage, the “Individual Insurance Accounts” are updated electronically in the information system of e-EFKA.

The insured will be able to know their insurance details until November 16.

It is clarified that further checks are carried out for the intersection of the data of approximately 14,000 uninsured insured, as the data is incomplete (eg there is no Insured Registration Number, etc.). An effort is being made to complete the submission of the DPA for them as soon as possible and by identifying the data by priority.

The completion of the procedure paves the way for the payment of seasonal allowances and cash benefits to these insured persons, as the stamps corresponding to the time they were beneficiaries of the special purpose compensation will appear in the information system of e-EFKA.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs emphasizes that the delay in submitting the Detailed Periodic Statements in no way entails the loss of employees’ rights, resulting from the insurance contributions of the respective wage period.

For this purpose, instructions have been given to all the Regional Coordination and Support Services of e-EFKA not to reject the cash benefits requested by employees due to untimely submission of the respective DPAs, but the requests to remain in the competent Services until the completion of the submission. of statements.

It is noted that a similar process will “run” for 2021, as the above affected workers in tourism and culture had the right to submit unilateral declarations for some months of 2021, due to the lock down at the beginning of the year.

Thus, again, these victims will be able to receive the benefits they are entitled to, but EFKA will also receive a new state subsidy for their contributions.

This process will not only relieve the specific employees affected by the pandemic, but also the EFKA, as it will collect the corresponding contributions for the beneficiaries of the compensations due to unilateral declarations. This is because it will receive a state subsidy to cover these contributions.

This will not be the only state “injection” into EFKA, as revealed by Capital.gr, o EFKA by the end of this month for affected entrepreneurs will reduce to reduce the insurance debts of affected entrepreneurs by 242 million euros.

This “haircut” will be done through the offsetting of the state subsidy for fixed expenses and the debts of the entrepreneurs who -according to KAD- were affected by the pandemic between April – December 2020.

The “hole” of EFKA from the “haircut” of debts of this period will be covered by the state (with funding of 242 million euros).

Also last month, EFKA received a budget of 542 million euros to cover the contributions of employees who have been suspended since the beginning of 2021.

This was the first relevant installment and will be followed by a second one of approximately 250 million euros, according to valid information from Capital.gr.

Thus, in total, e-EFKA is expected to receive from the state the total amount of over – less than 800 million euros for the contributions of those who were suspended (instead of 1 billion euros that was originally budgeted).

The same sources state that e-EFKA will receive an additional 160 million euros to cover the “hole” in its budget from the reduction of employees’ contributions by 3 points, which is valid from January 1, 2021.

“Haircut” of contributions of 242 million euros during the month – Who cares