The government will keep the current retirement age. PAS vice president Radu Marian considers “the decision to lower the retirement age taken by the PSRM-Șor tacit alliance” of the previous legislature is a crime against older persons. Marian said the government will not allow this law to take effect in January 2022 as the Republic of Moldova faces a workforce crisis, IPN reports.
According to Radu Marian, the rise in the minimum pension up to 2,000 lei is an imperative of current realities. In 2022, the implementation of this decision will cost the state budget over 2 billion lei. The government hopes to obtain this money as a result of the annihilation of the schemes to appropriate public funds.
“This year, the rises are based on internal funds, following the increase in the national budget revenues. In the future, we aim to ensure economic growth. The schemes to embezzle public funds will be stopped. Furthermore, all the countries resort to borrowing. The question is at what cost one borrows? The Socialists isolated the country at foreign level and borrowed money internally at a rather high cost. If need be, we will borrow at extremely low costs for infrastructure projects as we enjoy openness and credibility at foreign level. Our intention is to raise pensions and to create economic growth conditions,” Radu Marian stated in the program “Emphasis on Today” on TVR Moldova channel.
According to the MP, the current government will not allow the law to lower the retirement age to take effect on January 1, 2022. If a large number of pensioners enter the system suddenly, pensions will decrease drastically.
“We will maintain the current retirement age. The law adopted in 2020 is not constitutional as it was passed without the Government’s appraisal. It is a purely populist law that would lead to a dramatic decline in pensions. We don’t want this. We aim to raise the pensions. In parallel, we have a workforce crisis and we cannot take from where there is nothing. Until we get to an eventual lowering of the retirement age, we must increase the number of working people so as to contribute to this social fund. The decision taken by the PSRM-Șor majority in 2020 is a crime against pensioners,” stated Radu Marian.
In accordance with a law adopted by the PSRM-Șor majority of the former legislature, the retirement ages of 57 for women and 62 for men are to be restored on January 1, 2022. The law wasn’t challenged in the Constitutional Court, as it happened in the case of the other laws adopted without the Government’s appraisal in December 2020 by the PSRM-Șor MPs.
