Friday, October 13, 2006

Pension scheme should be Scrapped

Before introducing the so called
revolutionary pension the govt should consider
carefully the financial implication of continuing the
pension scheme.By its own admission the present scheme
is costing the govt annually $6 billion, money that
would be better used for developement and other more
important expenditure.
The present pension scheme is not only
subjected to abuse but is a liabilty to the govt.It
becomes questionable whether such a scheme is
sustainable over a long period of time.A typical case
of a civil servant with four wives rangeging in age
from 55 to 30 would literary means that the govt would
have to continuosly pay pension to the surviving wives
and children until the wives death and the children
becomes of legal age.The case of the late former
Deputy P.M Abdul Ghafar Baba is a case in point.At the
age of about 65 he married a woman half his age and
conceived a child. When he passed away, the child of
six yrs old was the only beneficiary since the late
Tun had by then divorced his wife.Because of his long
tenure in politics and govt service the pensionable
amount due to him came to a sum of $17,000 per month
and $204,000 per year.Because the child is six years
old the govt will have to continue to pay for 15 years
which come to a sum of $3,060,000.
When we consider the workforce of 1.1 million civil
servants that are pensionable, the financial
implication becomes frightening.The question that begs
to be answered is whether the govt can afford to have
such leakages without a long term adverse effect on
its financial planning

1 comment:

H J Angus said...

YES I agree that this is the reason why the pension bill keeps on increasing.

Perhaps one way to reduce the costs is to base on the life of only the first wife and her children.

Let the man buy insurance policies for his other wives if he wants younger models.

Let's say you are quite young and don't really want to marry. Seduce a well off government official who is unhealthy and then tolerate a few years of misery to get a pension for 30 to 40 years.

Not a bad calculation!