Low pension system

Social Policy Minister Michael Falzon (March 31) quotes statistics suggesting Maltese households are 25 per cent wealthier than the average family in the eurozone based on bank deposits, although we have no precise indication of the varying purchasing power a specific number of euros has in the various euro area countries.

Malta’s overpopulation may have pushed up the price of land and buildings at a much faster rate than in other countries, and land price inflation is a major factor in general inflation. Has our “low wage, low pension” economy cushioned our workers from this rampant inflation?

About two-thirds of our population now claim they are often financially stressed. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

The low wage/low pension economy has always been our main strategy to maintain low unemployment but, with galloping land and property inflation, the gap between the rich and the poor widens dangerously. About two-thirds of our population now claim they are often financially stressed. In post-war colonial Malta, I remember rationing of some basic foodstuffs but no food-banks or reports of homeless people.

The minister also applauds our longer career duration than that in the EU, even though our pension age is lower. That’s because of our low pension system.

In which successful European economies are public service pensions two-thirds of a capped Maximum Pensionable Income (MPI) and not two-thirds of best salary? I understand French public servants retire with three-fourths of best pay after 40-years’ service. Why retire later if you can live comfortably on three-fourths of best pay? You don’t need to save much money either for your old age with such a pension package. No wonder the French were creating so much fuss over just a two-year extension of pensionable age.

Finally, the minister hasn’t answered the question why his department is recommending paying for a second pension when Dom Mintoff outlawed second pensions in 1979 with its punitive effect on pensioners’ incomes still being meted out to date? How can the minister justify this discrimination between present and future holders of second pensions?

GonziPN’s 2013 electoral programme included a promised undertaking to “cure this open sore” (as Lawrence Gonzi said in radio interview) and I understand a costing was suggested that would compensate those pensioners who had suffered this reduction of a contributory pension because of a second pension. Has GrechPN forgotten this?

Neither have any of our MEPs tackled this Maltese institutionalised defrauding of pensioners. No wonder many feel these people are there mainly for their own interests.

Albert Cilia-Vincenti – president, National Association of Service Pensioners; past chairperson, Alliance of Pensioners’ Organisations, Attard

A public inquiry and a magisterial one

At a press conference at Auberge de Castille to mark the second anniversary of the current administration, Prime Minister Robert Abela reportedly said: “In relation to the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry, I could have acted more like a father rather than a lawyer…”

Shouldn’t the prime minister have also acted more like any qualified lawyer who honestly knows the basic difference between a public inquiry and a magisterial one?

We would be willing fools to be governed by people who don’t call a spade anything but a spade.

Philip Zammit – Għarb