What was approved last week in the Senate Plenary, far from reducing the controversy over the impact that the pension reform would have, if the House of Representatives also gives its approval to the ongoing project, raised the concern of some production unions. , think tanks, academics and millions of Colombians, well It is increasingly gaining strength that the initiative is not only leading to the expropriation of pension savings, but also increases the risk that the country will end up living the same experience as the Argentines, who saw that the resources for their retirement were disappearing in their hands. of the government of the day.
Only those who receive a monthly salary above that threshold will have the possibility of saving the amount that exceeds that level of 2.3 salaries in a private fund.
We must not forget that President Gustavo Petro, once the project received the approval of the Plenary of the Chamber, announced his idea of suggesting to the House of Representatives that this threshold be raised to 4 minimum wages, which was his campaign promise.
And although the pension savings accumulated by more than 19.3 million people, more than 405 billion pesos, will remain in the AFPs, once the pension reform comes into effect the resources of those who earn up to 2.3 minimum wages (more of 2 billion pesos per month) if there are no further changes in the threshold, they will become part of the Contributory Pillar savings fund and will be used to pay the pensions of those who are already enjoying their retirement today or those who will retire from now on.
Debate on pension reform in the Senate
Photo:César Melgarejo. TIME
‘gaucho’ experience
For analysts of the private pension sector, the direction that the pension reform is taking in Colombia brings to mind what happened in Argentina a little more than a decade ago, when the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in the midst of the economic crisis facing the country (overflowing spending, high fiscal deficits and defaults on public debt) private pension savings worth $30 billion were nationalized or expropriated.
The arguments used for this were to delegitimize the private pension savings system, selling the idea that these resources belonged to the bankers and not the affiliates and that the commissions they charged were high.
The problem is that the strategy did not solve the problem, to the extent that the government maintained high public spending and the leaders who succeeded Kirchner inherited those high deficits, while the savings of millions disappeared.
‘There is expropriation’
“The contributions you make in the future, therefore, will no longer be yours as they are today if you are in a private fund,” says the analyst, who adds that Now those contributions will be from the State, which, through Colpensiones, in part, will use them to pay current pension allowances.
And in response to those who say that it is not expropriation to the extent that the balance of those resources remain in the funds, Iglesias says that “confiscation, in principle, falls on the consignments”they strip people of the property of future contributions and “that also constitutes a confiscation”, but in the long run the balance is also expropriated to the extent that the transfer of the resources to Colpensiones is forced once the person reaches retirement age.
In the thread of this explanation about the expropriation of that savings, Iglesias says that this maneuver will have serious financial damage to the vast majority of members of the pension system “as is the case with the Semi-contributory Pillar, which reaches those who do not meet pension requirements (the most).
The analyst concludes that in this pension issue “the legal aspect is key, fundamental, but it is not enough to understand the phenomenon… Beyond the legalistic vision, there is a forced transfer, therefore violent, a theft, an expropriation.
