“If the FGS will be resolved (Guarantee and Sustainability Fund)before ANSES pays the over 80,000 sentences pensioner-friendly business and debts to provincial funds not transferred. And allow the National Congress to discuss and approve a retirement and pension mobility formula surpassing the current one, instead of the discretion that the Executive grants increases by decree, as contained in the official megaproject”.
This was told to Clarín by MP Alejandra Torres, deputy of Consenso Federal, chaired by Miguel Angel Pichetto, and co-founder of the consultancy firm IDESA, together with Osvaldo Giordano, current head of ANSeS.
“Our vocation is to support the governance of President Milei. But in many places of the megaproject there are superior alternatives this will have to be agreed with the different sectors,” Torres said.
Does it coincide with the megaproject that proposes to suspend the current mobility formula, delegating the development of a new formula to the Executive, while the increases are applied by decree without fixing either the frequency or the scope?, asked Clarín Torres.
-NO. We urgently need to remedy the unnecessary double delegation of powers in pension matters. Beyond social and ethical considerations, it does not contribute to fiscal solvency. As past experiences show, it is a destabilizing factor because it will increase litigation. Congress should develop a new mobility formula that, in my opinion, should set monthly salary updates to inflation.
But with monthly indexation, pensions would maintain their current level, perpetuating the huge decline of up to 50% in recent years and contradicting what Minister Caputo wants to see pension spending reduced, as part of the adjustment committed to the IMF ? ?
–It would be worse if the current formula or the executive’s discretionary increases were maintained. The solution is not the delegation of powers, which is clearly unconstitutional. Now the priority is the monthly adjustment of assets to inflation, then we will see how to recover what has been lost in recent years and we will need to analyze how to reduce the pension deficit without affecting mobility. There is no margin – neither political, nor social, nor ethical -, continue to further reduce the purchasing power of pensions.
If the increase in prices slowed, taking into account the previous variables, would the current formula guarantee increases above inflation?
–For now, inflation is expected to be high and we cannot wait for March to give the increase that would derive from the current mobility formula. A monthly salary adjustment must be applied.
Regarding the FGS, Torres states that “if you intend to liquidate the FGS, it is essential to give priority to the use of those assets to cancel the debts that the ANSeS has with pensioners and with the Provinces”.
The latest ANSeS report indicates this it had more than 250,000 pending cases, of which 83,000 have final judgments awaiting payment. According to the Pension Law, final sentences must be annulled within 120 days. This includes paying retroactively from the two years prior to the start of the process and readjustment of current salaries.
But this does not happen because ANSeS pays every year the amount established by the State Budget, which amounts to approximately 35,000/40,000 convictions. And the stock is not reduced because the lawyers of these pensioners believe that in many cases the payment of the sentence is poorly paid, they restart the dispute and file new lawsuits. Moreover, The Government has extended the 2023 budget item without adjustments for the payment of final sentences, meaning that fewer sentences would be paid this year.
But does Caputo want to use the FGS as collateral to contract new debts or to pay debt maturities with private creditors and not with pensioners?, Clarín insisted.
–The megaproject ignores thisin bankruptcies, with the proceeds from the sale of assets, The first thing to do is try to pay off the liabilities. This involves starting by offsetting the asset with the liability. The first link in the process would be to use the resources of the Sustainability Fund to pay the lawsuits and debts of ANSeS with pensioners and the Provinces”, insisted Torres.
SN
Source: Clarin
