‘DPM’s idea to hike retirement age to 70 not ideal’

MBABANE – Increasing retirement age to 70 years is not ideal for Eswatini.

These were the views of workers’ federations after the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), Themba Masuku, hinted on the move yesterday. High unemployment rate and life expectancy were cited as the reasons that retirement age should remain at 60 in the country.

The Secretary General (SG) of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), Mduduzi Gina, said there were certain indicators to consider first before changing the retirement age.

Indicator

He noted that life expectancy should be a key indicator. He also noted that Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark, to name a few, could increase their retirement age to exceed 65 because they had a longer life expectancy, as well as lower population and unemployment rates.

According to data sourced from the World Bank in 2021, Eswatini had a life expectancy of 59.7 years, with women’s being 63 and men 56.

Adding, Gina said increasing the retirement age might not be ideal for a country with a high youth unemployment rate that exceeded 53 per cent, according the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2021 statistics.

“It may lead to social strife,” he said.

The SG said the country’s economy might be sceptic because there would be no new ideas that would be invested in it; only redundant ideologies would be used. This is because, according to Gina, old people who are invested in previous eras would be running the workforce.

“There won’t be innovative ideas brought by the young generation,” he said.

Gina said this could increase youth unemployment further and, by extension, worsen the crime rate. When asked to look at it from the perspective of elderly grants, Gina said people in a functional government wouldn’t need grants, more especially those who were employed in their active years.

Reasonable

He noted that reasonable governments had national pension schemes, where every employee made a contribution that would take care of one after retirement.

He said in Eswatini, the conversion of Eswatini National Provident Fund (ENPF) could do just that. He shared that the national pension scheme would reduce the burden of grants from government, as the only people who relied on grants would only be those who never worked in their entire lifetime.

The DPM dropped this hint on Saturday at Mbabane Alliance Church, Sandla during the 64th birthday and PHD conferring celebration of Dr Reverend Johannes Mazibuko.

During the double celebration, the speakers highlighted how fit Dr Mazibuko was to continue working at his age. Some of the speakers, stated that looking at how some people were fit to continue working at the age of 60, perhaps it was time for government to review the retirement age. This was due to the fact that some people who retired at 60, did so while they were still fit to work and had skills. The speakers noted that some people, like in the case of Dr Mazibuko, attained advance qualifications while they were closer to retirement age, hence the need to review the age.

Grants

The DPM was among the guest speakers at the double celebration. Worth noting, elderly grants are under the DPM’s Office portfolio, along with orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) and disability grants. The country pays E500 per month to people above the age of 60, who are currently around 76 000. This is equivalent to E456 million per year, which is spent on elderly grants alone.

In response to the views that were shared by the speakers, the DPM told the congregants that reviewing the retirement age might not be a bad idea after all.

“From a government perspective, I am pleased that the elderly grant eligible age would move from 60 to 70. We would be reminded that the idea to move the qualifying age was during Dr Mazibuko’s celebration,” he said.