Study on impacts of determining retirement age 'essential': SPF
Muscat: Faisal bin Abdullah al Farsi, CEO of the Social Protection Fund (SPF) highlighted some of the most significant challenges faced by the pension system under the previous regime during a panel discussion at
'Together We Progress' Forum.
According to al Farsi, one of the core issues was the existence of multiple pension funds, each with different perspectives and considerable deficit in financing their obligations.
Al Farsi pointed out that these varying structures led to difficulties in transferring subscriptions between institutions and sectors, which adversely impacted the improvement of beneficiaries' perspectives.
The CEO said the new pension system aims to resolve the billion-amounted deficits that accumulated due to the imbalance between subscriptions and the benefits previously provided.
Addressing the Protection Law, he noted that while it is flexible and amendable, it is necessary to ensure the sustainability of the pension fund to prevent the recurrence of such deficits in the future.
He also clarified that end-of-service gratuity is a matter to be addressed by individual institutions, rather than the pension system as a whole.
Meanwhile, Salim bin Nasser al Aufi, Minister of Energy and Minerals and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Social Protection Fund (SPF) underscored the importance of studying the effects of determining the retirement age, in an early or regular pension. He explained that lowering the retirement age could significantly increase financial obligations for the fund.
According to al Aufi, any decision on the retirement age must be backed by accurate scientific studies, which effectively considers the sustainability of the fund to ensure a balanced approach.
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