One third of work force avoids paying BASS contributions

Around 800,000 of the 2.36 million people labor force do not pay their contribution to the Social State Insurance Budget (BASS), according to the Government audit report on BASS for 2011, reports Info-Prim Neo. According to report author Olesea Djurenco, the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, does have the necessary channels to motivate employers and employees to declare all their income and pay their contribution to the BASS. Meanwhile, those who do pay their contributions allow themselves to be late, and accumulate debt. Thus, this kind of debt has risen by 111 million lei in 2011, totaling at 851 million lei. The Court of Accounts concluded that the BASS lacks a proper methodology for planning its own income. As a result some of the income is missed and additional funds from the State Budget are requested for eliminating the BASS deficit. The audit surfaced delays in the payment of pensions, because the National Social Insurance House (CNAS) is tardy in issuing decisions on granting the right to pension. The CNAS does not offer advantageous conditions even for those who may want to insure individually; the 570 lei minimum pension is not stimulating, in this sense. The Court of Accounts recommended the Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, to initiate the completion of the legal and regulatory framework on the basics, and budgetary-fiscal policies of constituting the BASS, and CNAS to add to their contract with Moldovan Post services, through which the pension is delivered to beneficiaries, penalties for delays. CNAS president Maria Borta mentioned, in the context of the audit report, that a stricter monitoring of people who go to work abroad is necessary, the establishment of obligations in the Law on migration for having a contract and to honor the payments, which would give the person a right to age-based retirement pay. Minister of Labor, Social Protection and Family Valentina Buliga said that the amendments and addendums to the BASS legislative framework are under elaboration, and aim at reducing the payment of “envelope” salaries. “But the phenomenon will disappear when people, society as a whole, will understand that the pensions is not a gift from the State, but the individuals earn it on their own”, added Valentina Buliga.