PM urges end of delays in paying pensions

Addressing a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister George Papandreou stressed that it was high time for the government to fulfill its pledge for the faster payment of pensions after retirement. 

 

 "It is unacceptable that after 30 or 40 years of work, employees may have to wait for up to two years in order to receive their pensions," the prime minister underlined, saying that the gap between retirement and receipt of the first pension check should be reduced to not more than 2.5 months. 

 

 He said the government had delayed in carrying out the promise first made at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) in 2009, since it had put all its weight behind measures to deal with the economic crisis. Now, he added, the promise was finally being fulfilled through the process of issuing "pre-pension decisions" that would allow pensioners to receive the greater part of the pension that would finally be due to them in less than 12 weeks. 

 

 The prime minister also urged ministers to step up efforts to solve the problems faced by the public in their daily transactions with the state sector, especially in services where long queues tended to form such as social insurance funds, hospitals, tax offices and town planning departments.







ANA