State urged to write off benefit overpayments

PARLIAMENT is asking the state to write off at least part of the debt owed by people who have been overpaid state benefits and to find ways to gradually collect the remainder of some €40 million wrongly disbursed.

The overpayments were made to people entitled to various allowances and are now being deducted, causing economic hardship in some cases.

“There are cases where the cuts are very high, causing problems,” said House labour committee chairman Andreas Fakondis said, adding that in some cases people faced sustainability problems.

Fakondis said the committee had asked the state to strike off the debt where possible to reduce the burden from a large section of eligible people.

And in the cases where the money must be collected, it should be done through consultation so that the reductions are manageable, he said.

The overpayments concern the social insurance department – €7 million – and the welfare department, which handed out a further €33.4 million.

The time span in which the overpayments were made was not specified.

Fakondis said there were many reasons for the high payments and included the departments being unable to carry out timely checks, lack of staff and unconnected databases.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.