11 March
ONE of the benefits of serving the country as a civil servant is the pension one draws upon retirement, reflecting the years of commitment and hard work on the job. It is heartening to see that pensioners, who received a relatively inadequate pension under former systems, are now drawing a stipend on par with the current salary slabs in the incumbent civilian government’s administration.
And, the news gets better. It was recently announced that the government is working towards a national pension system that will cover retirees from the private sector as well. Leading the way towards the new system is the Implementation Committee of the Central Provident Fund System, formed on 19 February as per Order No. 27/2017 from the Office of the President to ensure civil servants and staff from the private sector can afford housing, have access to healthcare, and get monthly pension upon retirement.
The implementation committee is the first of its kind for the nation’s workforce. Our country is not rich yet, so, while the authorities may not be able to provide an all-encompassing welfare program to the people, we welcome the efforts to fulfill the requirements of staff from the public and private sectors in their later years.
Our workforce enables the coordination between the government and the private sector that drives the mechanisms behind our politics, economy, and society. Governments will come and go, and political systems and economic models will change over time, but our workforce will keep the great engine of our nation running smoothly for perpetuity, and for this, they deserve to be acknowledged.
The annual increase in the number of pensioners and the rise in life expectancy has pushed up government expenditure on pensions year after year. It’s not an easy task to keep up with the growing demand, especially given that the government’s current pension spend is 1.5 per cent of the nation’s GDP, one-sixth of the national revenue, and adds up to 10 per cent of the national expenditure annually.
Thus, we can clearly see there is a need to follow global practices and adopt a provident fund system so that our national pension program is sustainable and the nation’s budget can withstand the strain in the long run. It is our belief that if we enact suitable laws for the central provident fund and design a master strategy to implement them in a timely manner, then we can steer away from the challenges that will surely arise in the future as the number of pensioners steadily increases.
GNLM
