By Elias Hazou
THREE former state officials receiving multiple pensions are seeking to reclaim part of their retirement fund they lost under a law passed earlier this year.
Afxentis Afxentiou, Christodoulos Veniamin and Dina Akkelidou are mounting a challenge to a law, under which civil service pensions were included in calculating the pensionable earnings of state officials.
The legislation, passed in January of this year, was an amendment to the State Officials on Pensions (General Provisions) Act of 2011. The latter was aimed at saving the state cash through reforming the practice of multiple pensions, by stipulating that the total payout amount cannot exceed half the pensionable earnings for any of the pensions concerned.
But the 2011 law stopped short of going all the way by exempting pensions for civil servants. The lapse was corrected in the amending law passed earlier this year.
Previously, supposing someone had held two different positions as a state official and in addition served in the civil service, the first two pensions would be offset against each other, but the third pension (for the civil service) would be paid on top of these two, in full.
Now, however, the civil service pension is included in the offsetting exercise – resulting in a significant decrease in the overall payout.
What Afxentiou, Akkelidou and Veniamin are challenging is the retroactivity clause in the January 2013 law stipulating that the netting of civil service pensions extends to persons who already retired when the law went into force.
According to Politis, which broke the story, Afxentiou had also written to the Attorney-general, complaining about the unfairness of this arrangement.
The former central banker has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court challenging the 2013 amending law.
Afxentiou is on three pensions, having served as permanent secretary at the finance ministry, as minister of finance and as Central Bank governor from 1982-2002.
What’s more, on his retirement about a decade ago, he got a bonus, or lump-sum payment – to which he had contributed nothing – of some 150,000 Cyprus pounds, or €255,000.
Speaking to the Mail yesterday, Afxentiou said he had lost about 53 per cent of his overall pension payouts as a result of the 2011 and 2013 pension reforms.
He is currently clearing around €3,800 a month, down from close to €8,000 previously.
“It’s a major blow to my standard of living,” he said.
“I understand that people are experiencing hard times, but this reduction in my earnings is excessive. The president and his ministers said they are prepared to take a 25 per cent hit in their earnings, but would they agree to a 50 per cent cut? Would anyone?”
Afxentiou feels that he and others in a similar position have been singled out, “for populist reasons,” and argues that the savings generated from slashing his pension will hardly make a dent as far as state finances are concerned.
“When you look at the numbers, it’s as if all my years in the civil service have been wiped out,” he added.
But daily Politis calculated that, since the multiple pensions were reformed two years ago, the state has saved around €4m.
Dina Akkelidou declined any comment when contacted. She is on two pensions, having served as director of the state lab and as minister of health.
Christodoulos Veniamin could not be reached for comment. The 90-year-old is understood to receive two pensions, one each for the positions of permanent secretary (ministry of the interior), and one for having served as minister of the interior and as defence minister.
Politis said also that Christodoulos Christodoulos – Afxentiou’s successor at the Central Bank – is mulling challenging the law as well.
