IKA: Tens of thousands of retirees were left unpaid

An unprecedented mess prevailed yesterday Thursday with the payments of IKA pensions, as tens of thousands of pensioners were left unpaid and others received less than last month.

And this because upon the opening of banks IKA discovered it was short of 21-22 mil. euros to pay the EKAS arrears as reported by Eleftheros Typos newspaper.

Some pensioners were paid less, others nothing at all and some saw new cuts of up to 20 euros without being included in those receiving double pensions and who will face new cuts this month.

According to the news story, Labor ministry officials blamed this mess on the fact that many pensioners are now liable for a smaller EKAS  (i.e. 170 or 50 euros instead of 230).

But while Labor ministry officials were saying this was not such a big deal and that the situation had returned to normal, financial IKA members sounded the alarm since early in the morning for the missing 22 million euros for the EKAS payments.

The problem arose because in the beginning of May IKA had estimated it would need 40 million euros for the EKAS payments, but due to the fact that arrears were paid this month, it found itself in need of an additional 21 million euros on the 30th of May.