Pensions of 60 Greeks halted after they refuse to give AMKA numbers

Sixty Greeks have had their pensions stopped because they refused to provide their social security numbers (AMKA) to inspectors for religious reasons, Labor Minister Yiannis Vroutsis has revealed.

Responding to a question in Parliament, Vroutsis said that during checks the 60 pensioners said they objected to giving their AMKA number, which authorities require as part of the process to check that people are not wrongfully claiming pensions. Vroutsis said that the 60 people in question were registered with 12 different funds but that 40 of them were receiving their pensions from a fund for retired seamen.