Willemstad:— The Social and Economic Council (SER) of Curaçao issued today an advisory opinion on the initiative draft national ordinance amending the Pension Country Ordinance for public servants. The Chair of the Parliament submitted the opinion request to the SER on February 28, 2024. This initiative draft, from the fraction of the MAN in Parliament, aims to remove the link between the indexation of pensions and the adjustment of salaries of public servants.
The proposed changes aim to improve the purchasing power of retired public servants by revising the existing conditional indexation scheme. This is because the current arrangement depends on both the indexation of salaries and the coverage ratio of the pension fund, which has led to situations where pensions could not be indexed despite the healthy asset position of the General Pension Fund of Curaçao (APC).
In addition to decoupling the indexation of pensions and salaries, the initiative draft also includes proposals to amend Article 30, paragraph 4, of the Pension Country Ordinance, with retroactive effect from the date of entry into force of P.B. 2015, No. 78. This amendment is intended to fully eliminate the adverse impact on pensioners.
The SER's opinion is based on a thorough analysis of the legal, policy, socioeconomic, and financial consequences of the proposed amendments. In doing so, the SER considered not only the APC's current financial position but also the expected long-term effects of the new indexation rules.
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