Undistributed money lying in the account of the PIOM Fund, inadequate calculations of pensions, payment of pensions to deceased people, lack of necessary staff are the remarks that auditors have been pointing out for years, and they are also in the new report prepared by the State Audit Office.

Of particular concern is the fact that the SAO has noticed that technical errors are being made, which may lead to unrealistic pension calculations.

"The electronic system has built-in controls and automatic downloading of user data, payment amounts and pension adjustment coefficients, but it happens that the parameters on which the determination of the amount of pension income depends, due to technical problems, are not downloaded completely correctly, which is why there are risk of errors in calculations, and there is little certainty about corrections without a reaction from the user," the audit report says.

In addition to the technical problems, there are also insured persons for whom there is no data in the Fund's registry and they have great difficulties in providing the necessary documentation to prove the seniority from the appropriate legal entities and institutions.

"Usually we are talking about liquidated entities, for which the appropriate documentation is not always found in the State Archive, and the digitization process for this documentation has not started at all", emphasized the auditor.

According to the Report, as much as 2,5 million euros of the contributions are undistributed and thus remain in the account and are not recorded in the calculations of those who pay for the pension days.

"On the payment account of the Fund - account for payment and distribution of contributions for pension and disability insurance, at the end of 2021 there are unallocated funds in the amount of 156.102.000 denars (about 2,5 million euros), of which part in the amount of 90.971.000 denars (about 1,5 million euros) are balances on the above-mentioned account from previous years, which the Fund cannot use for pension payments, and the insured do not have the opportunity to exercise their rights from the PIO. writes in the Report.

According to the explanation, the allocated money is from unallocated funds, most often during the payment of a contribution for part-time work and temporarily hired persons for whom the Fund has not received appropriate applications/deregistrations for employment and registration of a debtor, then unidentified payments occur as a result of submitted monthly calculations for salary with incorrect data or with changed personal or tax numbers, or in case of partial or incorrect (more or less) paid funds by the obligees.

In order to resolve part of the unidentified payments, the Fund continuously issues refund decisions for the erroneously paid amounts, prepared by the Contribution Collection Department based on a submitted request, but the collection has little effect, the Auditor notes.

The old problems from the time when the concept of gross salary did not exist, so the salary was paid separately, especially the contributions - pension and health. Most of the claims for unpaid contributions as of 2008 are from inactive bonds or bonds for which bankruptcy proceedings have been initiated and for which there is uncertainty about collection. Translated into practice, what the State Audit Office says is the numerous cases in our everyday life when workers who worked were left without a pension, or when they retired they faced the painful truth that they had been lied to for many years and their pension contribution was not paid.

"The movement of the receivables that arose until 2008 shows a decreasing trend that is not the result of realized collection of the receivables. The fund continuously deletes the claims of companies that have been notified by the competent state authority that they have been liquidated and/or deleted from the records, which is why the amount of claims has decreased, which for the period from 2016 to 2021 amounts to MKD 3.838.459.000 (62,4, 2008 million euros n.z.) and it can be expected that in the future a large part of the remaining claims made until XNUMX will also be deleted due to uncollectibility", explained SAO.

They take a pension from the deceased, the dubious payments of 2,5 million euros

On the basis of damages for pensions paid to deceased beneficiaries, temporary pensions, family pensions or other types of unfounded pension payments, the Fund's accounting records show claims from citizens in the total amount of 3,6 million euros, of which doubtful and disputed claims are 2,5 million, which represents a decrease of 2,1 percent compared to 2020. According to the auditors, this represents an insufficient level of collection of these claims despite the continuous creation of cases for damages from citizens.

The executors turned on the Fund

The auditors established that it is an established practice for some executors to execute execution orders, in which pension beneficiaries appear as debtors, and the funds are withdrawn directly from the Fund's account.

"After an analysis, the Fund ascertains that certain executors, after being notified by the Fund's expert service that they are unable to execute the execution order for several reasons (a pension beneficiary dies, a beneficiary with the lowest amount of pension, a beneficiary for whom already 1/3 of the pension is withheld according to another execution order) proceeded to execution directly from the Fund's account," the Report says and explains that in 2021, 8 executors withdrew 20.000 euros in this way.