OAEE needs more funding for pensions

OAEE, the social security fund for the self-employed, may need an extra 300 million euros than had been budgeted for this year to cover its pension payments, Kathimerini understands.

The 300 million comes on top of the 834 million euros that had been included in this year’s state budget. The release of an extra 200 million euros has already been approved but because the fund is encountering problems in collecting contributions, another 100 million may be needed.

By June, OAEE had already absorbed 65 percent of its budgeted funding for the whole year. In the meantime, the amount of contributions collected during the first half of the year came to 460.5 million euros, against 480 million over the same period in 2015.

Just over 700,000 Greeks are insured with OAEE but 538,087 are either in arrears or have suspended their membership of the fund. This means that just 163,061 people are paying contributions, which come to a total of 231.5 million euros every two months.

OAEE is owed around 11 billion euros in unpaid contributions. Of this, 2.7 billion is from people who were insured with the fund but have suspended their activity.

Worse still, the fund also owes around 1 billion euros to Greece’s main healthcare provider, EOPYY.