Rows and doubts in the last days of the private administration of pensions in Bolivia

During the last days it has been reported in bolivian long lines at the doors of the pension fund administrators (AFP), in addition to doubts and optimistic and pessimistic expectations, because from next week the government of this country will take control of the citizens’ retirement money.

Dozens of people were waiting in line this Thursday, May 11, at the offices of the AFP Futuro de Bolivia and Previsión, in La Paz to complete some procedure or clear up doubts about the transfer of retirement funds to the Public Manager of the Social Security of Long term.

The advance in Forecasting was slow, which caused the inconvenience especially of those who arrived early in the morning to be attended. A retiree who asked to keep his name confidential told EFE that he had been in line for at least three hours.

The man, who was processing a pension due to the death of his wife, expressed his doubts about the state management of pension funds in the face of a possible crisis that would lead to the money being “spent on other things”.

Also waiting in the same line for more than three hours was María del Pilar Mallea, a woman who had to carry out a procedure to return a balance that her deceased husband had.

Mallea commented to the same medium that he prefers to avoid “create mistrust in the community”, so he trusts that “what they are doing is fine” and you have no problem with your retirement savings going to the state administrator.

“My position towards life in general is to accept what is, and what is, is going to happen to the Manager. So what do I have to do? so as not to complicate my life, to have confidencehe declared.

The citizen Orlando Siles, a retiree of the so-called “sandwich generation”, that is, the former workers who had difficulties accessing retirement when the pension system was changed in 1997, because they were “trapped” between one regime and another.

Siles, who was waiting at the doors of Futuro de Bolivia to collect his pension, positively assessed that, for example, a monthly discount of 1.31% that the AFPs made to retirees “from next month will be paid in favor of rentiers ”, so it considered that “there will be good management”.

With 30 years of experience in social security, the lawyer María Rosa Sevilla differed from that opinion and expressed her doubts about the preparation of those who will take charge of the pension funds.

Sevilla questioned that the Pensions Law promulgated in 2010 says that the Public Manager is a “strategic company”, when globally these entities “They are not companies, they are social security entities”.

For the expert, the Manager has to be “an entity with autonomy in everything, administrative autonomy, choice, economic, so that it is very transparent” and your staff have to be well trained so that you don’t fail.

“I am very worried, I do not want to advance criteria because we must have a little more information, but this transition worries me greatly“, held.

The 2010 law provided that the Public Manager manage the funds of the Comprehensive Pension System, but its statutes were established only until 2015 and the entity began to receive contributions only last week.

The AFPs will receive the procedures of all their affiliates until this May 12 so that the Manager assumes the total operations next Monday.

Source: EFE