By reducing contributions to pension insurance and increasing the minimum wage, the Government is quietly introducing the second and third pension pillars, i.e. forcing employees to invest the amount by which their net earnings will now be formally increased in savings so that they will have something to live on when they retire. the Association of Pensioners of Montenegro "For a life worthy of man" told "Vijesti".
Most of the members of this association are retired university professors, former businessmen and public officials.
They state that these crucial laws for current and future generations are adopted without the necessary analysis, and even without discussions at the Social Council.
"Instead of paying mandatory contributions, which was the case until now, with this proposal, all responsibility is transferred to employees - future pensioners. It is up to them to decide whether and if they have anything to save for the 'old days', or to give everything immediately they spend, which, considering the level of their earnings, is a more likely outcome, thus in favor of their own harm", they state from this association.
They point out that due to the reduction in contributions, a hole in the budget of 350 million euros will be created annually, without taking into account the increase in prices, the movement of wages, consumer baskets and others.
"Today, employees, even more than pensioners, have much more reason to worry after the proposal of the Fiscal Strategy, which provides for the abolition of employee allocations related to PIO contributions and reduced to only 10 percent, and the complete abolition of employer allocations for the same purposes. Since the aforementioned proposal significantly changes the conditions for acquisition, and thus, what is even more important, calls into question the determination of the amount of the pension of future pensioners if these changes are adopted, it was logical for the Social Council to consider this proposal and on its findings and proposal, based on on expert analysis, inform the public of Montenegro," the association said.
They say that considering that this proposal was not on the agenda of the Social Council at all, "it is difficult to talk about improving the social dialogue in the way that Minister Naida Nišić is announcing."
"The headline that appeared a few days ago in the daily media, 'Social dialogue is never stronger, the end is with one mind', authorized by Minister Nišić, at first glance associated us pensioners with the countries of northern Europe, the so-called 'welfare states'", they said from this association.
They believe that the new proposal on the abolition of contributions gives relief to employers even when they did not ask for it.
"The Union of Free Trade Unions in its comments on the draft fiscal strategy decisively states that: 'in addition, the savings that employers will receive by canceling the PIO contribution at the expense of the employer is minimal, within the framework of which we particularly emphasized that such a measure 'rewards' employers in Montenegro which, unprovoked, will further increase their profits to the detriment of the PIO Fund budget, and those employers who need it the most (micro and enterprises in economically less developed areas) will not receive real help." And secondly, in search of a valid reason why employers reluctantly accepted the aforementioned amendments to the Act, one should not go too far. With this, it is obvious that they are following the well-trodden path of their predecessors, some of whom have established themselves in advisory, ambassadorial positions, membership in the boards of directors of certain companies, and the like," the association states.
They say that they are taken aback by the "incoherent statements with which the leaders of the PIO Fund are deceiving the citizens of Montenegro these days that there will be no reduction in the amount of pensions".
"If they had remained silent, they would have thought that at least they understood the problem, but that they should not advertise. However, things are significantly different, completely to the detriment of pensioners and, even worse, employees... So, it is not possible that the PIO Fund does not they know that the amount of pension for each employee depends on the insured's personal coefficient. More specifically, if this 'economic invention' entitled 'average minimum wage' is adopted, then employees who now have a net salary of over 800 euros (higher education), as well as employees with a secondary education, who receive earnings of 600 to 800 euros, have significantly lower coefficients for calculation, i.e. determining the amount of the pension," the Association stated.
Enable the entry of pensioners into the Social Council
This association points out that there was a more formal discussion on these laws at the Social Council, while the proposal to change contributions for PIO was not on the Council's agenda at all.
How serious the work of the Social Council is now, as they say, is shown by their website, where there are no proposals for decisions, conclusions, minutes, members from the former convocation are listed as members, while the last announcement is from December 2022.
"If it is to be judged according to the data from the media, in the current convocation of the Council, the eight representatives of the Government consist of four ministers and four state secretaries, who first 'advise' themselves and then confirm their decisions to themselves at the Government. This makes it clearer that the entire social dialogue has been designed for years in such a way that the poor, namely pensioners and employees, remain in poverty, while quasi-entrepreneurs and various other domestic and white-world 'rentiers' continue to get rich precisely from the work of the poor." they stated from this association.
They propose to amend Article 13 of the Law on the Social Council, so that its members are representatives of the state who cannot be public officials and who are not employed in the state administration, representative representatives of employers who meet the prescribed conditions in terms of representativeness to the greatest extent, representative representatives of trade unions which has the largest number of members, a representative of the largest branch union, representative representatives of pensioners "after the existing Union of Pensioners is radically reformed and fully takes care of their status", and a representative of civil society.
If this 'economic invention' entitled 'average minimum wage' is adopted, then employees who now have net earnings over 800 euros (higher vocational education), as well as employees with secondary education who receive earnings of 600 to 800 euros, will have a significant lower coefficients for calculation, i.e. determining the amount of the pension."
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