One out of six retirees - collecting disability claims

• Out of 5.5 million retirees, over 900,000 are retired on disability claims

• All cases of retirement on medical causes will be reinvestigated

• Doctors guilty of issuing phony medical retirement certificates may be removed from the medical system

• Social security deficit has climbed to 670 million lei

The reform of the pension system is scheduled to begin next year, after the new retirement law gets passed by the Parliament.

The agreement with the IMF provides that the law on retirement needs to be passed by December 31st 2009, and officials of the Ministry of Labor said that the draft of the Retirement law was completed and has already been submitted to the Parliament.

The new law also regulates disability pensions: the new law is far more restrictive when it comes to retirement on medical grounds, and includes the reinvestigation of all the cases, due to the large number of retirees which are receiving disability pensions (one in six retirees, according to data from the National Retirement and Social Security Office - CNPAS), requested by our editors.

CNPAS reports show that, out of a total of 5,525,307 retirees, 924,877 are retired on disability claims!

Out of the 924,877 retirees on medical grounds, 44,212 are retired on first degree disability claims, 553,113 on second degree disability claims, and 327,552 on third degree disability claims.

Ministry of Labor officials say that doctors issue medical disability certificates too easily.

Unions and other organizations talk about corruption and graft and request the reassessment of all medical retirement files, as well as the punishment of any doctors found guilty of issuing fake disability certificates.

Unions claim the number of forged disability certificates may be in the hundreds of thousands.

• Dumitru Costin, BNS: We support the reassessment of all disability retirement files and the punishment of all those who are guilty of fraud in this matter

When asked for his opinion on the data provided by CNPAS, Dumitru Costin, leader of the National Union Block, (BNS) explained: "The number of disability retirees is huge. Judging by those numbers, one would think we are a country of sick people, which is absolutely not true. This is simply corruption and theft. We support the reinvestigation of all the medical retirement files and we have proposed that the new retirement law ban doctors which have fraudulently issued disability certificates. It is unacceptable to have entire villages full of people retired on disability claims".

The head of the National Union Block considers that the new pension law (ed. note: which proposes, among other things, having the doctors of the social security office determine the disability of the patients instead of the doctors treating the latter) is "too soft" on transgressors and that in its current form, "it doesn"t root out the problem".

Dumitru Costin also said that people who illegally retire early on disability claims do so because they can then work illegally and get paid a salary as well as collecting retirement money.

In turn, August Chira, founding member of the Pensioner Party, (ed. note: leader of the Popular Party and of Social Security), considers that the system has a problem and that many of those who retired on disability claims did so fraudulently.

"We were made aware of this aspect ourselves and we support the pension reform because the system has major problems due to the huge number of people retiring on disability claims", Mr. Chira said.

• 670 million lei deficit in the social security budget

According to data sent by CNPAS to our editors, the Social Security Budget of the State (of which pensions are being paid) had a deficit of 669,1 million lei on October 31st.

The public pension system has 32.8 million lei in revenues, and expenses amounting to 33.5 million lei. The same data shows that Romania has 5.525.307 retirees.

CNPAS data sent to our editors also specifies that the 409,113 public sector retirees receive the minimum guaranteed pension of 350 lei, out of which 243,749 are farmers. "There are no delays in the payment of the minimum guaranteed social pension", CNPAS officials said, when asked if there were any difficulties in the payment of the minimum guaranteed pension.

The current budget for the payment of the minimum guaranteed pension is 58,500,000 lei, and CNPAS officials say there won"t be any issues with exceeding the budget.

• Trouble making pension payments in 2010?

The minister of Public Finances, Gheorghe Pogea, and Prime-Minister Emil Boc on Monday assured that the State won"t face any issues with paying pensions and wages until the end of 2009.

Minister Pogea assured that the Ministry of Finance has sufficient funds to last it until the end of the year, as Romania may receive in January the 1.5 billion Euros installment from the IMF which was initially scheduled for December.

Also in January, Romania expects to receive an additional 1 billion Euros from the European Union, which should also be used for paying pensions.

When asked if there is any risk of the state being unable to pay pensions in the beginning of 2010, Gabriela Mateescu, director in the Ministry of Labor, said she hoped that the new pension law, which is being discussed by the Parliament, would get passed by December 31st, to meet the terms of the agreement with the IMF.

"We hope this law gets passed by December 31st 2009, and at the same time that the state will succeed in successfully collecting its planned revenue next year", she said, when asked if there was any risk of the state being unable to pay pensions next year.