Although delayed, the Government has found a solution for the payment of pensions to individuals receiving family and limited pensions. The debt repayment will occur this year in two installments, with the other two in 2008. In total, the debt will be repaid in four installments, each amounting to 152 million kuna, totaling 608 million kuna.
The funds will be secured through the privatization of T-HT, which is also intended for the debt repayment for the remaining 420,000 pensioners, who are expected to receive debt repayment through the third and fourth installments this year.
The only question is whether this privatization will take place this year, considering that the issue of the DTK network has not yet been resolved, and that, according to analysts, this deal will be more challenging than that of INA, given that the position of Deutsche Telekom’s owner is stronger than that of MOL in INA.
Regarding further issues related to pensioners, the Government has another task ahead – the equalization of old and new pensions, for which the deadline is set for mid-July. How this will be accomplished is still unknown, but it is most often discussed in terms of establishing another fund, similar to the Pension Fund from which the debt repayment is currently being made. In any case, the solution should ensure that the so-called New Pensioners have an equal pension to those of the old pensioners, who receive about 600 kuna more than the new ones.
New pensioners are those who retired after 1999. Since then, the calculation of pensions has no longer been based on ten years of work with the best average salary, but rather an increasing number of years has been taken into account, nearly the entire working period. There are about 360,000 new pensioners, and they should find out the solution to their problem by mid-year. (Lidija Kiseljak)
