Prime Minister Chung Hong-won called on civil servants Thursday to cooperate in a government drive to revamp their deficit-ridden pension plan, saying the reform is inevitable and designed to make it sustainable.
Defying strong resistance from state employees, the government has recently embarked on the pension reform designed to reduce its growing deficit stemming from the increasing average life span of pensioners.
Late last month, the ruling Saenuri Party unveiled a draft reform plan, which mainly calls for a delay in the eligible age for public servants’ pension to 65 from 60 and raising the proportion of contributions from 7 percent of salary to 10 percent.
“I urge civil servants to fully understand that the reform is an inevitable one aimed at relieving tax payers’ burden and making the pension more sustainable,” Chung said in a public statement. “I call for your active cooperation and urge you to refrain from collective action against it.”
Through this reform. the government aims to solve the fundamental problems of the pension system by changing the rates of pension contributions and payments as well as delaying the pension age, he said.
If the current pension system is not revised, it is feared that the pension fund may soon get drained, the prime minister said, adding the burden of the ballooning deficit cannot be passed on to other citizens.
The average life expectancy in our country has extended by about 30 years now from the time the pension system was first designed, dramatically increasing the number of pension takers as well as the length of pension dependence, Chung said.
“Now is the time to make a bold decision to reform the civil servants’ pension for the sake of the country’s future,” he said.
“The government will not unilaterally demand one-sided sacrifice and concessions from state workers … it will make active efforts to improve the working environment and other benefits for you to be able to work with pride,” the prime minister
noted.
Meanwhile, a group of 29 vice ministerial-level officials agreed Thursday to support the pension reform drive, according to the government.
A total of 23 ministers also plan to express their support for the reform in a Cabinet meeting next week while high-ranking officials at the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, plan to make a similar move. (Yonhap)
