Pensioners Union of Moldova disagree with pension reform

Chisinau, 14 December /MOLDPRES/- The Pensioners Union of Moldova has made public a declaration addressed to the presidency, parliament and government, expressing disagreement with the pension reform, which will enter into force in 2017.

“The current government approved the draft pension reform stealthily without making it to public consultations and ignoring the proposals by experts and trade unions. The Pensioners Union wants an equitable pension reform. We propose to create a special fund of elderly people, to liquidate all criminal schemes to steal public money from budget, set fiscal privileges for legal business, return the stolen billion, fight against corruption etc,” the declaration reads.

The head of the Pensioners Union of Moldova, Victor Leanca, said that the pension reform would be timely if “it is carried out by stages in increasing pensions of special tax on financial transactions of offshore companies and tax on luxury things, creating special tax on gambling, collecting financial means got after alienating the goods of state officials involved in criminal schemes, liquidating special pensions for certain categories of citizens and suspending indexation of pensions exceeding four average salaries.”

“If the authorities ignore our requirements, the union along with other citizens will protest on 16 December against “pseudo-pension reform”, Leanca said.

Earlier, the National Confederation of Trade Union of Moldova has earlier expressed dissatisfaction with the attitude of authorities who ignored the amendments proposed by trade unionists to the draft law on pension reform, and asked the parliament to consider them in the first reading, but it failed.

The pension reform sees the gradual increase in retirement age, for women – from 57 to 62 years and for men – from 62 to 65 years, by 6 months annually starting from 1 January 2017 till 2026. Also, it is scheduled to increase the length of employment for women from 30 years to 33 years, and for men from 33 years to 36 years. The Labour Ministry argued that the demographic aging rate increased from 13.6 per cent in 2005 to 16.2 per cent. At the same time, the Moldovans share over the age of 60 years will represent 25 per cent of people till 2035.

(Reporter P. Beregoi, editor L. Alcază)