Pensioners' association wants retirement age tied to healthy life years

The president of the National Association of Pensioners, Moses Azzopardi expressed the association's opposition to an increase in the pensionable age if this was tied to the increase in life expectancy. He however floated the idea to have the pensionable age tied to the increase in healthy years.

Azzopardi said that the National Association of Pensioners is opposed to have the age increased in relation to the increase in life expectancy. However, he said the increase in the pensionable age should be related to the healthy life years, which measures the number of remaining years that a person of a certain age is expected to live without disability. Essentially it measures disability-free life expectancy.

In February this year, the European Commission insisted that Malta should accelerate its pensions reforms that had started in 2006. In a White Paper on the issue, the EU stressed that Malta should move fast in raising the pensionable age and encouraging private pensions schemes.

Speaking to MaltaToday, Azzopardi urged the government to involve the association in the consultation process regarding pension reform. Altghough the association has been consulted by the core group set up by the social policy ministry, Azzopardi said that the association should be directly represented on the core group.

Meanwhile, during the association's annual general meeting, a number of points were raised including the figures of poverty in relation to the elderly. In his address to the members, Azzopardi said that in Malta the rate of persons at the risk of poverty above the age of 65 is higher than that of the general population, while the EU average rates are inverted.

In his address, Azzopardi also vented his disappointment at the way pensioners are treated by the authorities and cited a a pre-budget consultation meeting held this week. He explained that the association was not informed by the finance ministry that the meeting was cancelled and only got to know about this when the representatives arrived at the venue.  

The association's members approved a resolution which will be sent to the President, the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader among others. The resolution calls on the government to resolve the situation at the Mater Dei Hospital which is plagued by long waiting times at the emergency department and out-of-stock medicines.