Friday, May 16 2014

The amendments to the Law On Funded Pension initiated by the Government and passed by the Parliament are, inherently, a halfway measure, unable to give a long- term solution to the problem. Armenian Parliamentarian from Heritage Party Tevan Poghosyan told reporters on 16 May.

The parliamentarian fears that pressured 'from above' employers will simply ban their employees to write a statement refusing to make compulsory pension payments over time. "After a while, the government may declare that most of the citizens do not refuse from the funded pension and return to the initial version of the law," Poghosyan said. According to him, it would be logical if the citizens who do not oppose the funded pension wrote applications for voluntary participation in the funded pension system.

The oppositionist thinks the authorities manipulate and the amendments made to the law seek to weaken the public movement, otherwise, they would settle the problem once and forever. 

On 15 May the Armenian parliament approved the extended option of amendments to the law "On funded pension" that was submitted by the government. Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan said that the bill suggests adding a provision that will relieve the citizens falling under the pension reforms of the responsibility for non- payment or failure to meet the time limit for the relevant payments. In addition, if a citizen files a statement that he refuses to participate in the accumulative system, the employer has the right not to make the relevant calculations to transfer the pension contributions.