Social Insurance Board to pay bonuses to staff as disabled still wait for pension
30.12.2008, 13:42
Social Insurance Board has paid year-end
bonuses to all its 545 employees although the system of paying disability
pensions failed in October leaving thousands of people without income.
Külli Pedak, director general of the board, told Eesti Päevaleht that she saw
no reason not to pay bonuses since the problem with the pension payments was not
caused by the staff of her agency.
“Our people have done their work and have even done more. We paid the bonus
since we managed to survive these tough times,” said Pedak, adding that the
bonuses would be paid from funds that had been saved during the
year.
The system of paying out disability pensions has been
suspended since October, forcing about 7,000 disabled people to wait for up to
three months until the received their pension.
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The list of staff members who will be paid a year-end bonus for diligent work
includes three persons who were directly involved in developing the new
disability pension system.
Spokesperson of the Social Insurance Board said that the bonus amounted to
around 30 percent of monthly salary.
Representative of the Ministry of Social Affairs that oversees the operations
of the Social Insurance Board said that the ministry would not comment the bonus
payment since this is up to the agency to decide whether to pay it or
not.
The Ministry of Social Affairs has blamed the IT system for
failure to pay out disability pensions. Allan Poola, head of the IT department
of the Ministry of Social Affairs recently announced his resignation.
The IT system was developed by a private contractor Me¬di¬soft that was the
only bidder for the tender. Medisoft that signed the tender contract at the end
of August 2008 announced that the system would not be available before end of
August 2009, but in spite of that the Ministry changed the system of paying out
disability pensions in October 2008.