The council of ministers on Wednesday approved another bill that would supposedly deal with the controversial issue of multiple pensions. What was approved by the cabinet, could still be changed by the House finance committee and amended by the plenum when the bills relating to the matter would finally be put to the vote.

What is bizarre is that the discussion of bills that would end the provocative arrangement of multiple pensions has resulted in deputies being given a bigger retirement pay-off and the 15 per cent tax on this being scrapped. Is this because they would not be paid a state pension or because payment would not begin until they reach 65 years of age?

Under the current law, deputies and state officials are entitled to their state pension for their ‘public service,’ at 60, in contrast to the rest of the people who have to wait until they turn 65. To underline the privileged treatment our ruling elite has arranged for itself, a pension for 10 years’ service is the equivalent of what a public employee is usually paid after more than 30 years of work. And then we have foreign ministry employees, like the president, who was paid a pension before he had even turned 50!

The discussion of the multiple pensions has been going on for almost two years, during which we have heard many proposals, many reservations and constitutional concerns. Apart from the government bills, which are aimed at replacing pensions with hefty pay-offs for state appointees such as ministers, there are another 12 law proposals, supposedly aimed at addressing the issue of multiple pensions. The state legal service has argued that many of the proposals might be unconstitutional and the president would have to send them back to the legislature if they were approved as laws.

Confusion reigns supreme and this is inevitable because the politicians are motivated by populist considerations than any real desire to reform the state pension system so that it does not grant preferential treatment to deputies, politicians and public employees. For example, why is a private sector employee on a big salary, paid a much lower pension than public employee, despite contributing much more to the state pension fund? Why does he have 12 per cent deducted if he receives the state pension at 63, whereas deputies and state officials receive it in full at 60? Why is a limit not placed on the maximum amount a public employee can receive from the state in pensions, in the same way a limit is placed on the state pension paid to a private sector employee? Is it constitutional for the state to give preferential treatment to politicians and public employees?

The problem is not that some retired public officials, who have been appointed to a public post are receiving a salary on top of the state pension. The much bigger problem, which deputies refuse to address because it is not in their personal interest to do so is that we have a state pension system that offers blatantly preferential treatment to one group of citizens. And nobody sees this as a violation of our constitution.