By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

During his visit to the Ministry of Labour, the Prime Minister, in an abhorrence of his speech, declared that he was completely satisfied with the course of the regulation for working pensioners, as around 170,000 have registered on the platform.

He would be more satisfied if he knew the updated number. According to the latest data that has at his disposalin the first 4 months of the platform’s operation, they have declared that more than 183,000 pensioners are working!!!

An unimaginable figure if one considers that before the new framework was passed that provides for a 10% contribution on the pensioner’s pay instead of a 30% withholding of his pension, the declared working pensioners were only 35,000.

In other words, we are talking about a 514% increase, which no one has reason to believe will not increase in the coming months.

More declared pensioners mean more collections for EFKA!

Many more receipts than even the most optimistic scenario!

Shortly before the passing of the new law, the experts of the Ministry of Labor had made 3 scenarios for the course of the revenues given that the abolition of 30% of the pension withholding costs €102 million:

According to the first scenario, working pensioners increase by 50% compared to 35,000.

The benefit for EFKA funds is 42.1 million euros.

The second scenario envisaged a doubling of working pensioners to 70,000 with a benefit of 201 million euros.

In the third scenario we have an increase of 200% and so we are talking about 105,000 registered with a benefit of 252 million euros.

(all 3 scenarios assume that the pensioners’ income is in the range of €1000-1300).

At the point where we are with the 183,000 working pensioners, the benefit for the funds will comfortably exceed 300 million euros. And we still have…

In this climate of “happiness”, a black point is 1600 pensioners who wanted to keep it all for themselves.

The reason is 1,600 mainly freelancers and self-employed people who had declared that they were working but did not pay their contributions (increased by 50% in favor of EFKA).

EFKA notified them by email, informed them that they owe and that their debts will be withheld from their pensions as was done with the July pensions, which were paid at the end of June.

The law even allows the entire pension to be withheld to satisfy the debt, although the information says that EFKA has not exhausted its strictness.

In fact, an alarm had sounded for a total of 8,000 insured persons.

However, it was found that the 6,400 had retired without having closed their books at the AADE (even though they were not working), so they had essentially no debts.

THE new law provides that if a pensioner continues to work without having declared it, then he will be fined equal to 12 main and auxiliary pensions.