After two days of debate in Commission VII of the Senate, The Government’s pension reform project has already passed one of its tests before Congress with the approval of the text in its first debate.
The Legislature gave the green light to the document of 94 articles with few adjustments, among which it stands out that the pillar system, one of the bases of the pension initiative, remains in force.
In this way, the Comprehensive Social Protection System for Old Age contemplates a four-pillar model: solidarity, semi-contributory, voluntary and contributory savingsthe latter being the one that has generated the most concern.
(See: The difficulties of the Petro government one year after its electoral victory).
The doubts that the contributory pillar has raised
Since the text of the project was presented, several aspects included in the contributory pillar have been controversial, especially those related to contributions.
To contextualize, this section of the initiative includes workers who have the ability to pay to make contributions and access a pension, as well as the benefits established by law.
In that sense, This pillar is made up of the Average Premium component and the complementary Individual Savings component.
(See: Pension reform: changes that have the transition regime).
The first is made up of all the people who are affiliated to the pension system and will receive all the contributions for the contribution base income between one and three minimum wages; while the second, will be in charge of all contributions that exceed this limit and up to 25 minimum wages.
Regarding those in charge of administering these resources, the articles establish that all contributions below three minimum wages will be quoted in Colpensionesand from this amount onwards the resources will be allocated to the Pension Fund Administrators (AFP) or private funds.
Pension in Colombia
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Considering that the majority of contributors would be part of this segment, this particular point has been the subject of analysis in various technical studies.
Among the repairs that have been made, there is an alert due to the high amount of the threshold of the medium premium component and the high fiscal costs that would represent for the country due to the increase in the pension liability that the nation has to assume.
(See: ‘The pension is the most viable of social reforms’: Ocampo).
Likewise, and taking into account that in Colombia a significant percentage of workers receive a salary equal to or less than this amount, Analysts have also pointed to the review of this point and the impact it could have on the participation of the AFPs.
In this regard, during the most recent discussion of the pension project in the Senate, a record was left for debate in plenary, in which the Party of ‘la U’ requested that this ceiling lowered to two minimum wages.
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