ATHENS: Media reports from Greece shows that, Greece is facing a serious problem in terns of pensioners case. It stated that a €450 million hole in the budget for state pensions means that if the IMF/EU money does not materialize in time, those pensions will not be paid for this month. A new sense of alarm has surrounded Greece as several eurozone officials have come to the conclusion that the new government does not have enough money to cover both the pension and IMF bills and could soon default.
Whatever the case, Greece’s leftwing government will be able to cover pension and civil servants’ salaries due at the end of the month, according to the deputy finance minister for expenditure, who has been frantically scraping together the funds in recent days.“Whatever needs to be paid will be paid on time — that means wages, pensions and the subsidy to IKA (Greece’s biggest health and social security fund),” Dimitris Mardas told the Financial Times.
He dismissed speculation that the cash-strapped government would have to issue €500m of IOUs to cover part of the €1.7bn bill as “quite unfounded.”However, Mr Mardas could not give any assurances about a separate €450m payment to the International Monetary Fund due on April 9, which is overseen by a separate department within the ministry.Athens has promised to present a set of proposed reforms to its eurozone creditors by Monday, in the hope of persuading them to unlock some of the €7.2bn in undisbursed funds from its international bailout.
