On March 22, the Government filed the project of the pension reform before him Congress of the republic for further discussion and, despite the fact that the discussions are just beginning, Some calls for attention to what is in the articles are already beginning to be known.
In Colombia, the vast majority of workers, especially those with low incomes, fail to contribute even 1,000 weeks when they reach their pensionable age. People who earn a current legal monthly minimum wage, on average, they only manage to accumulate 219 weeks.
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Given this, the reform proposes a annuity for those adults over the age of 65 who have not been able to contribute to the 1,300 weeks required in the medium premium scheme (public) or the 1,150 weeks in it contributory regime (private).
To these people, as long as they are eligible for the Solidarity Pillar proposed in the reform, they will be paid a life annuity if they manage to contribute between 150 and 1,000 working weeks. They will benefit from Semi-contributive Pillar embodied in article 18 of the bill.
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Although an annuity may sound like a policy that seeks to solve a problem, the reality can be obscured. if the amount that will be paid to each older adult under these conditions is taken into account. “In almost all cases it will be a pension allowance of a ridiculous, derisory value“, said Julio César Iglesias, financial analyst and investment adviser on his Twitter account.
According to estimates, a woman who has contributed to the average premium scheme could receive a monthly income of 94,095 pesos if he managed to contribute 900 working weeks.
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In the case of those under the contributory regime (Colfondos, Future, Protection and Skandia), his allowance would be 129,815 pesos. In the case of men, this amount would be 111,926 pesos for the public system and 154,415 pesos for the private
However, in the event that the woman could only contribute 450 weeks, the allowance would be on the 50,000 pesos for both regimes, while for the man it would be above the 60,000 pesos monthly.
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“These allowances, as is obvious, do not solve the problem of old age insurance and are marginal. But of course, they serve to feed the narrative that this reform increases coverageIglesias added.
However, from the Government it is assured that to these amounts it is necessary to add more than 223,000 thousand pesos that will be delivered to citizens who cannot reach their pension and who are in a condition of poverty.
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Likewise, he also explained that the most worrying thing is that there would no longer be returns, but life annuities, but they will not be delivered from the age required to retire, that is, from the age of 57 years in the case of women and the 62 years for menbut it would be done from the 65 years for both cases.
“Women will have to wait an additional 8 years to start receiving any pension benefit. In the form of miserable allowances. For men it will be an additional three years of waiting”, he mentioned.
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The same way, these allowances would not be inheritable. This can mean that if a person dies at age 66, they will not have received any retirement benefits and neither will their family. “Remember that income is calculated without survival and, of course, it is not heritable.e”, is explained in the articles of the reform.
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