In the hands of his administration EFKA it is expected that in the coming days all the know-how, new technologies, modern management methods, as well as problem management and corporate culture that have been applied over the past two and a half years will be transferred, with the aim of issuing the expected pensions by the EFKA project team. This is a group that has taken on and carried out the very difficult task of clearing the stock of pending pensions, a private-public partnership that at first might have provoked a backlash but now ends up representing one of the most successful elections of a previous labor secretary. Kostis Hatzidakis.

The aim is that within the next three years this new pension mechanism, developed, tested, adjusted and implemented by the project team, will be fully implemented in FECA. This model is, of course, a hybrid one, since the transition to the next day is already planned and is being implemented at the same time, the one that will bring EFKA to a new digital age, with the creation of its own modern Integrated Information System. The first tenders are being held and the schedule predicts that by the end of 2026 the hybrid model will be switched off and a new system developed completely from scratch based on the experience of recent years will be put into operation.

At the same time, the digitization of the EFKA paper archive and the creation of a unified and digital insurance summary, in order to expedite the award pensions those who are approaching retirement age and meet the relevant conditions, but also the automation and digitization of transactions of the insured and employers, interoperability with other public services, simplification, as well as a reduction in the overall cost of functioning of a single entity.

As they explain by speaking with “K” chief project manager Michalis Kefalogiannis, EFKA Deputy Commander Alexandros Varveris, as well as project team leaders from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), through a painful, lengthy and difficult process, often dominated by frustration but never defeatism, EFKA managed to drastically limit unpaid pensions, which was the point. But a new mechanism was also created, working according to the rules, which were tried, corrected and finally applied to the whole body. The process involved three separate axes.

The first concerns control towers. This is the “technical part” of the process, i.e. all technological infrastructure required for the installation of the control tower, which was mainly taken over by the team of the private company PwC.

The second axis is about supporting the process by continually updating information on how the first axis tools work in practice. There were constant briefings from all regional pension departments about how they work and what problems there are. It was attended by Team Leader M. Kefalogiannis, as well as EFKA employees and PwC executives. If, for example, a problem arose in eastern Macedonia – Thrace and the issuance of pensions did not go at the expected pace, they immediately requested a report with all the data for the previous day. We looked at the data, talked to the leaders of each local branch, identified the problem, “wrote our heads” and found a solution, and set up a meeting a week later to see what had been done, how the issue was progressing. In other words, problems were diagnosed and management coordinated.

And the third axis concerns the management and coordination of daily life. The project team, in close cooperation with the General Directorate of Pensions and the administration of EFKA, led by Panagiotis Dufeksis, having found the solutions necessary for the second axis, handed them over to the agency’s managers to bring them to all local offices. , for universal application as a general rule.

This whole dynamic process has been documented in an instruction that will be handed over to the EFKA administration as a link between the old and the new EFKA.