THE GREEK GOVERNMENT has announced its latest measure in its campaign to get the public finances back on track: stopping the payment of pensions to people who are… well, dead.

The country’s deputy labour minister last week said the government had been “obliged to announce that some people in this country have been drawing pensions, though they may have died years ago.”

It is estimated that the government had squandered hundreds of millions of euro in payments that were automatically lodged in the bank accounts of deceased pensioners every month.

In one case, the minister confirmed, a pension was still being paid to someone who had died in 1999. Of the 500 people on the government’s books as being over the age of 110, it transpired that at least 300 had died since 2003.

The clampdown promises to save €100m a year, with the government also set to investigate the possibility of getting unwithdrawn payments returned to central coffers.

In some cases, however, the pensions had been withdrawn and spent by the relatives of the deceased parties.

The move forms part of a greater investigation into fraudulent activity within the ailing country, including prescription forgeries and rampant black market employment. Greece is trying to clean up the country’s economic activity as part of the conditions for its €110bn bailout from the IMF and the European Central Bank.