Treasury deducts €61 million from civil servants pay packets

The Treasury has received €61 million since November 2013 when it began to offset civil servant’s debts to the state by deducting them from their wages and is now considering extending this to include payments owed to police.

The measure covers the social insurance services, VAT and the Tax Authority, where debts owed by state workers to the government are subtracted from their pay cheques, according to Phileleftheros.

In light of the encouraging results, the Treasury has decided to broaden the scope of the measure and include any payments owed to the police.

Although at the moment this measure is only applied to government employees there are thoughts on extending it to cover the job market as a whole.

Additionally, after discussions with the Finance Minister Harris Georgiades, it has also called on the commerce ministry to send them a detailed outline of businesses that rent government land in industrial areas that are behind on their rent payments.

In 2013, delayed rent had reached €5.3 million, which increased to €6.9m in 2014.