EFKA sets ambitious targets

The 600 employees at the Single Social Security Entity (EFKA) responsible for recommending the issue of pensions, along with the competent directors of the departments, face the threat of being transferred to another department if they do not make the target of issuing three pensions per day on average.

The new, all-seeing eye of EFKA, the control tower monitoring the course of pending pension applications and the work of the employees responsible for their issue in real time, yesterday came officially online.

Based on the available data, the target set will raise the bar considerably, not only for the quarter of employees (150 from a total of 600) who only issue an average of two pensions per month, but also for the 25% deemed most efficient, averaging at 45 pensions per month.

In practice the target set is for all EFKA experts who handle pension applications to process at least 60 per month each, or three per working day. That would add up to EFKA issuing 36,000 new pensions every month. Failing that individual target, according to sources, and following a grace period of up to two months, not only the expert employee but also their superior officer will be transferred to other EFKA departments in order to be more productive.

The new online system was presented on Thursday by Labor Minister Kostis Hatzidakis, his deputy, Panos Tsakloglou, and General Secretary for Social Security Pavlina Karasiotou.

As was repeatedly stressed during the presentation, this new control tower will upgrade EFKA in general and allow its administration, the general directorate of pensions and the department directors across Greece to have the following information in real time 24 hours a day: the number of outstanding applications per category and per former professional fund, the number of pensions issued per fund and per day, month, year etc, the number of pensions issued per region in Greece, and the number of pensions issued per department and per employee.