Without warning or explanation: how the Pension Fund of Ukraine 'cut' the pension from 4000 to 1600 hryvnias.

A pensioner from Dnipropetrovsk region lost more than half of her pension due to the 'inventory' of her pension case by the Pension Fund of Ukraine. Previously, she received almost 4000 hryvnias monthly, but now only a little over 1600 hryvnias.

Pension legislation expert Serhiy Korobkin reported that this woman had worked for 15 years and had a total experience of 30 years. She peacefully received her pension after it was assigned in 2005.

The problems began in March 2020, when her pension case was subjected to internal audit.

'The salary coefficient was reduced almost 4 times, from 2.2 to 0.5. The basic amount of the pension was only 978 hryvnias, and then it was raised to the minimum,' explains Korobkin.

According to the expert, the Pension Fund explained that they carried out an 'inventory' of the pension. However, the woman was not provided with the audit act, and the information about the audit is absent in her personal account on the PFU electronic services portal.

The main reason for the sharp decline in the pension was the distrust of the salary amounts stated in the applicant's certificates from 1972-1976. Instead of real amounts, the fund's employees entered zeros into the calculation.

'If it weren't for this audit, today she would be receiving almost twice as much pension - about 7000 hryvnias,' the expert notes. Korobkin emphasizes that such actions are illegal: 'Pensions assigned before the 2011 reform cannot be changed by anyone. At that Time, there were no conditions to conduct mandatory verification of salary certificates.'

Today, this woman's pension amounts to 3370 hryvnias - this is the minimum pension payment for persons with full work experience aged 65 and older who are not working.

The expert advises that in case of disagreement with the actions of the local Pension Fund management, one should write a complaint to the regional management or the central office of the PFU in Kyiv. According to him, pensioners often win court cases against the Pension Fund, although receiving compensation for past periods is complicated.

It has also become known that some categories of pensioners will not receive an additional payment in March.