Cyprus-Forum.com

[Cap]

Step in the right direction.

GREECE has stopped various benefits, including pensions, to 200,000 people who lied to get their monthly cheques or were in fact dead.

The figure is roughly 2% of the Greek population. Debt-laden Athens discovered the fraud after beginning basic data cross checks and means-testing, under pressure from its international lenders to cut its deficits.

The government yesterday terminated payments to families who continued to receive the pensions of their dead relatives and it also stopped benefits to wealthy recipients who had posed as poor to become eligible.

"They were caught during the inquiry and the state is reclaiming the money they have illegally taken," a Labour Ministry official said.

The cuts, implemented gradually since September last year, will generate savings of up to €800 million (£654m) annually.

Greece has already slashed pensions by an average of 25% to balance the books of its ailing state-run social security system, outraging pensioners and fuelling deep discontent with the EU/IMF bailout's austerity policies.

With nearly one-quarter of the 11 million population retired, pension payments are a major burden on state coffers.

Greece's generous welfare state and bloated public sector have been blamed as the root causes of a debt load that is about 1.6 times the country's economic output.

Efforts to shore up the pension system are being hampered by austerity-fuelled unemployment, which has climbed to a record level of nearly 22%.

Greece has been hit by a shrinking economy that has been crushed by the eurozone crisis. About 600,000 jobs have disappeared in the country since 2008 and economic output has shrunk by around 20%.

The country's army of jobseekers have spread out across the European Union and beyond and, among young people, one in two cannot find a job.

One embittered group of voters has launched a legal bid to take the government to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming official economic policies are hampering their right to marry and prosper.

Earlier this week, the country's central bank chief said Greece's economy will contract a deeper- than-expected 5% this year. The projection topped a previous forecast the bank made in March, when it projected the €215 billion economy would contract 4.5% after a 6.9% slump in 2011.

Twice bailed-out Greece is in its fifth consecutive year of recession.

Speaking to shareholders at the central bank's annual assembly, Greek Prime Minsiter George Provopoulos, who is also a European Central Bank Governing Council member, urged strict adherence to reform and fiscal adjustment commitments Greece has agreed with its eurozone partners, saying they were needed to return the economy to sustainable growth.

Athens is under pressure to apply more fiscal austerity to shore up its finances as part of a new rescue package agreed this year with its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund to avert a chaotic default.

Mr Provopoulos warned that Greece's eurozone membership was at stake if it failed to follow through on its pledges, especially after national elections next month.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/ne ... s.17416699

[CBBB]

Good on them, now it is our turn to stop paying 59,000 non-productive civil servants!