PIO assets should be used to generate income

BELGRADE – Serbia’s Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO) has huge assets that should be put to use for generating income as soon as possible, and a legal framework needs to ensure that pension contributions are actually paid for there to be enough money for pensions, said participants at a meeting of Serbia’s pensioner trade union assembly on Tuesday.

Marija Todorovic, the union's vice-president, said that before the 1990s and the transition, the number of employees was three to four times as big as today, and there were four to five times less pensioners and paying contributions was mandatory.

After the transition, the situation has changed dramatically, with the number of employees dropping sharply which in turn reduced the inflow of funds, and the discipline in the payment of pension contributions is now lost completely, Todorovic said, explaining that pensions have been getting increasingly smaller over the recent years because of that.

Money surpluses in the fund used to be invested in various facilities, spas, recreational centers, specialty hospitals, securities, protection workshops, mines, water supply and many enterprises, she said, adding that the Clinical Center in Belgrade alone has received EUR 44.37 million from PIO.

The PIO fund is now worth about EUR 400 million and a lot of facilities are in a bad state of repair, they should be overhauled and put on a sound footing to be able to provide income, she said.

Todorovic said that estimates from the mid-1990s showed that PIO had a 30 percent stake in some firms, and now this percentage is reduced to 10 percent.

Branko Radovic, member of the assembly, recalled that during the early stage of privatization, PIO missed an...

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