Reform bill on civil servants pension cheated people, requires renegotiations

Reform bill on civil servants pension cheated people, requires renegotiations. May. 07, 2015 07:18. .

Evidence after evidence suggests that the reform bill on the civil servants pension is a measure of reform that has been devised deceitfully. According to Lee Yong-ha, the head of the pension system research center at the National Pension Research Institute, a civil servant who earns 3 million won (2,700 U.S. dollars) or less per month on average is set to receive more pension payment than the amount he or she was to be paid before reform. The grand premise of reform of the civil servants pension was "to pay more and be paid less," and even if the pension is introducing the function to redistribute income for low-income earners, a hike in pension payment from the current level is not reform but reversal of reform.

Purportedly phased lowering of the starting age for receiving civil servants pension payment at the pretext of improving equity vis-à-vis the national pension also entails a deceitful plot. The national pension already raised the age at which pension starts to be paid to age 61 in 2013, and the starting age is set to be raised one year by every five years thereafter, but the starting age for receiving civil servants pension payment will be raised to age 61 as late as 2022.

The original government plan suggested the time when the starting age for pension receipt will become age 65 was 2031, but the revised plan as agreed by the ruling and opposition parties extended the schedule by two years to 2033 at the pretext of equalizing with that of the national pension. Also, phased extension of the period of civil servants pension receipt from the current 33 years to 36 years and thus effectively maintaining the total amount of pension payment at the current level is also a form of cheating. Reducing the minimum period of subscription to the civil servants pension entitles the subscriber to receive the pension from the current 20 years to 10 years. In addition, the introduction of non-on-duty pension payment is designed to pay half of pension payment for disabilities when subscriber acquires disability even when he or she is not on duty.

The reform bill is even sloppier than the 2009 reform measure, which earned criticism as "loose self-reform." Back then, the pension payment rate had been lowered from 2.1 percent to 1.9 percent effective the following year, but this time, the rate has been lowered from 1.9 percent to 1.7 percent for 20 years. IN 2009, subscribers’ contribution to the civil servants pension was raised from 5.5 percent to 7 percent for three years, but it has been raised from 7 percent to 9 percent for a five-year period this time. The 2009 reform included a drastic measure that changed a subscriber’s average monthly income that serves as the barometer in calculating pension payment, from "the last three years before retirement" to "the entire period of employment" on top of adjustment of figures, but the new reform bill does not include such a measure. As the new bill has little effect in reducing budgetary burden, the amount of subsidies for deficits in the civil servants pension from the state budget will increase from the current level in six years. As such, we can hardly understand what has been reformed.

The ruling Saenuri Party and the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy had argument over the whether or not to specify "reinforcement of public pension" in connection with deliberation of the civil servants pension bill at the National Assembly on Wednesday, but what is equally important is the essence of the reform bill itself. It is doubtful whether President Park Geun-hye made initial comments on the bill that the bill fails to meet expectations after learning the details of the reform bill that are full of deceitful provisions. If she had not been aware, the president must have been cheated as well as the public. It is only a matter of time before the civil servant pension will inevitably be reexamined and reconsidered.