The Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security (INSS) has run out of money reserves to guarantee the payment of pensions for future retirees and, on the contrary, it is now an indebted institution and on the brink of bankruptcy, according to the yearbook. 2021 statistical report from that institution, published more than a year late.
According to official data, published in the “INSS Statistical Yearbook 2021”the institution that collects, manages and must ensure the contributions of workers to guarantee their pensions at the time of retirement, far from multiplying the money reserves, reduced them to zero and rather compromised them by accumulating debts that exceed 2 thousand 697 million córdobas at the end of 2021.
The pensions most committed to these debts are those destined to cover payments for disability, old age and death (IVM) that owe a total of C$ 2 thousand 563 million 43 thousand córdobas. In second place of debts are pensions for Professional Risks.
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When Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007, the outgoing president, Enrique Bolaños (RIP), declared that his administration had managed to clean up the INSS accounts and left him with a surplus of more than 1,183 million córdobas. 15 years later and with Ortega still in power, the social security institution, which he received with a surplus, is in debt.
At the close of 2021, the INSS accounts became insolvent. Which implies that the pensions of future retirees are at high risk.
And the INSS crisis is not only reflected in the “broken bank” faced by its reserves, but also in the low growth of affiliates. According to the recently published report, in the last 10 years, the institution has only managed to grow in the number of affiliates by 21.5%, going from 623 thousand 458 insured in 2012 to 757 thousand 548 in 2021.
However, the number of ordinary IVM pensions has grown by almost 100%, going from 100,818 in 2012 to 257,874 in 2021, justified, according to the INSS, by the “natural growth in the number of older adults” .
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The crisis that Ortega has put the INSS in is not new. Already in December 2020, the Government had to use 2 thousand 084 million córdobas from a loan acquired with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to save the INSS, which had no funds to guarantee its expenses, payment of pensions to retirees and its benefits.
The INSS is in a severe crisis, and so far the Government has not spoken. It was the crisis of this institution and the unilateral measures that the Ortega government attempted, which ignited the spark for the social protests of April 2018, which were put down by the dictator with blood and fire and which resulted in 355 murders (according to data from the Inter-American Commission on Human Facts, IACHR), thousands of wounded and more than 200,000 exiles.
