According to official data, sent to the Lusa agency, from the beginning of the year until 30 September, the ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, received 1,445 complaints due to delays in payment of various pensions, which means, on average, 161 complaints per month and more than five per day.


By way of comparison, in 2018, 923 complaints had been received, almost four times more than in 2017.


During this year “many complaints reporting delays of more than one year” continued to arrive at the ombudsman, but the increase in complaints does not necessarily mean that there is a real worsening of the delays at the National Pension Centre.


“The media coverage of the problem of delays, since the end of 2018, may have contributed to the increase of complaints registered this year”, the ombudsman’s press officer pointed out.

The ombudsman “continues to monitor the situation and awaits the results of the measures adopted by the Government and the Social Security Institute”.


“It is expected that a new monitoring of the treatment given to applications in the National Pension Centre will be made soon, in order to verify the evolution of pending issues”.