The government’s response to the payment requests of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS), in the sense that it paid more than 4.2 billion dollars between 2021 and 2023, is drawing criticism from technicians and retirees. The IESS authorities have been sending letters to the Ministry of Finance for several days, stating that it is necessary to urgently make the payments that are already late this year by 1,250 million dollars.

This government portfolio responded that “in the context of economic challenges, such as decreasing oil revenues, increasing international interest rates, increasing security costs and mitigating the El Niño phenomenon, the Government continues to work tirelessly to meet the outstanding commitment through timely planning.” And he emphasized that between 2021 and 2023, $4.2 billion was paid out ($3.1 billion for pensions, $400 million for the health debt and $700 million for bond interest). However, there is no mention of a shortfall in payments this year, preferring to refer to the fact that Biess has $600 million in excess liquidity.

According to Mauricio Espinel, coordinator of the Social Security Study Group, the ministry’s statement is like saying to a worker with a salary of $1,200 who only received $800: “but I already paid you $800, what are you complaining about?” Espinel says that it is true that the amount of millions has been paid in these two years, but what must be paid is not fulfilled and this creates a significant gap.

Furthermore, Espinel assures that this situation is not happening for the first time. This happened in other governments as well. Remember how President Rafael Correa said that IESS does not need 40% and then the law was changed so that it is not paid; In the end, the Constitutional Court returned that payment, but without compensation for the unpaid amount.

Indeed, in March 2015, the Correa regime’s position was that the IESS had economic surpluses: “It is absurd that we subsidize pensions (to the IESS) when it has surpluses. What do you do with that much money?” asked the then President Correa.

Espinel also remembers that the IESS has disinvested funds for several years, causing inconvenience to the social security entity.

He also explains that the situation with IESS is getting more and more difficult: “The IESS pot is nowhere to be scraped, the situation is serious.”

In this sense, he recalled that as a Study Group for Social Security, they presented a counter-proposal to the project of the Inter-Institutional Commission established by the Government, which sought to make IESS more sustainable. However, even though these two proposals exist, no one disputes them. Neither the workers, nor the cameras, nor the profession, nor the universities say anything, he assures. They have an ostrich strategy: “they stick their head in the hole and nothing else”. For Espinel, these actors practice everyday culture, not seeing what will happen in the future. Pensioners, for example, are currently looking for pension payments. Consider that they may react “when they are told that we will no longer pay you $400 in pension, but $200, and the rest with bonuses”.

Meanwhile, Henry Llanes, president of the National Front for the new IESS, believes that Finance’s version is not true. He assures that next week, as pensioners, they will file a lawsuit with the aim of forcing the Government to comply with what is in the law, that is, to pay what corresponds to it, so that the rights of employees, pensioners and co-workers are not jeopardized.

Notice that three things happen:

He also criticizes the Government’s position, saying that there is liquidity in Biess. Consider it part of ignorance. He says that the fund for the payments of 600,000 retirees would have to have significant profitability, and this would only be achieved if this fund had about 150,000 million dollars, and not the barely 6,000 million dollars that it currently has.

The non-payment controversy became public more than a week ago, but the member of the IESS Board of Directors, María de los Ángeles Rodríguez from the ranks of the employers, mentioned that a meeting could be held between IESS representatives and the ministry this Thursday. However, no appointment was made. Rodríguez warned that since last March, there have been no Board of Directors meetings to discuss the debt issue.