This one On Tuesday at 3:00 p.m., working meetings will begin in the Commission for the Right to Work and Social Security to prepare a report on the draft law on amendments to the Social Security Act and the IESS Banks Act. The law seeks to reform the composition of the Board of Directors of IESS, the Board of Directors of IESS Bank (Biess), to turn Biess into a first-class bank, and to have the state pay part of its debts to the public. companies.

It is normative popular initiative Presented by a representative of pensioners, Henry Llanes, sponsored by the National Front for the new IESS; by the Association of Branches, Pensioners and Pensioners of IESS Pichincha and other organizations of pensioners in the country. Having this quality of popular initiative, the Assembly must send the project within 180 days, according to Article 103 of the Constitution. In the event that this does not happen, within the set deadline, the project would automatically become a norm of the Ministry of Law.

According to Henry Llanes, a little over a month has passed since the approval of the initiative by the National Electoral Council and its notification to the Assembly.

Therefore, the committee will be familiar with the text from Tuesday and will deliver it to the competent bodies of IESS and Biess in order to familiarize them with the main purposes of the law. According to Llanes, the goals of the law can be summarized as follows: four points:

Composition of the IESS Council

Currently, the Management Council of IESS has three members: a representative of the President of the Republic, one employer and another employee representative. The proposal says that the IESS Board of Directors will consist of five members: two branch representatives and their deputies, who will be elected by the 3 million members. In addition, the retiree and his replacement, also elected by 600,000 retirees. The fourth member will be elected by 500,000 private employers, not by a higher chamber, and finally the Ministry of Labor will elect the fifth member representing more than 3,300 public employers. “The goal is to have a majority vote in the House to turn Social Security around 180 degrees,” Llanes says.

The Board of Directors of Biess is elected by the Board of Directors

There are currently four members in the Board: the president, who is the president of IESS himself, the Minister of Finance or his representative and two representatives, one from the branches and the other from the pensioners, who are appointed by the Council for Citizen Participation. The citizen’s proposal establishes a change in the procedure for electing members of the Biessa board of directors. Four members of the board of directors will be appointed by the Board of Directors in a competition for objections and merits. Those selected must meet the technical profile: know the financial and stock market.

Biess will be a tier one bank

The idea is that IESS Bank (Biess) can open windows for clients, regardless of whether they are connected to IESS or not, and that each of them has a bank account. All the bank’s clients will be able to access loans, pay for services, as every private bank in the country does. This would increase income to create more resources to provide for future pensions, says Llanes.

Payment of debts with state shares

The fourth point of the law, says Llanes, refers to the payment of back wages from the state to IESS. Llanes says the latest study he conducted concluded that the state owes IESS about $31,000 million between debts and bonds. The idea is that, since there is no liquidity, the state will pay them with shares of state-owned companies in strategic sectors. In this sense, he says that oil companies, transmission and production of electricity, mining, telecommunications should change their figure into companies of mixed economy in which the state will be the largest shareholder.

Llanes explained that once first-instance report, it must be discussed in the plenary session. Subsequently, with comments and observations, it will be possible to perform this second report for final discussion. All in 180 days, which have already started running since March 15. To present this type of initiative, the sponsoring social organizations had to collect 32,748 signatures, but they managed to reach 75,500.

Currently, other reform initiatives are taking place in the country. For example, There is an interdisciplinary commission chaired by Augusto de la Torre by presidential order, which strives to make the IESS pension system sustainable. They are in charge of drafting a non-binding report that they will submit to the Executive Committee so that, if the president deems it appropriate, it will be sent to the Assembly. On the other side, In November 2023, elections must be held for the members of workers and employers in the Management Board of IESS, according to the law that was confirmed in the Assembly a few months ago.