The Fiscal Council sharply raised the issue of increasing the retirement age in the "Security" sector through a position on social networks, provoked by the huge personnel costs in the state apparatus. The topic comes to the agenda against the background of data that tens of thousands of employees continue to work in the civil service even after acquiring the right to a pension.
"Why are nearly 11 thousand employees of the Ministry of Interior of retirement age not here, but still at work? Because they retire too early. The solution is to raise the retirement age in this system."
With this comment on "Facebook", illustrated with a photo of a beach with umbrellas, the Fiscal Council emphasizes the lack of reforms in the law enforcement agencies.
According to information from the "SEGA" newspaper, civil servants in this sector have so far been saved from any tightening of their belts. This year, military personnel and civil servants under the Ministry of Internal Affairs Act acquire the right to a pension at the age of 54 years and 6 months with 27 years of total insurance experience. Of these, two-thirds (18 years) must actually have been served under the relevant special laws.
For comparison, for other citizens, the requirements are significantly higher – age of 62 years and 6 months and experience of 36 years and 10 months for women, while for men the required indicators are 64 years and 9 months of age and 39 years and 10 months of experience.
Martin Dimitrov from the political formation "Democratic Bulgaria" claims that a total of 75,679 employees in the public sector receive both a salary and a pension. Of these, 7,039 are employed in law enforcement agencies, and another 5,338 people work under the Civil Servant Act.
"This topic should not be bypassed and should be part of the optimization of costs," Dimitrov commented on the presented startling numbers.
Early retirement in the system is also duplicated by additional privileges. One of the analyses of the pension reform states that "there are numerous cases in which military personnel who have neither sufficient experience nor completed years claim to retire according to the order of the first category of labor, at an even lower age".
To solve the problem, changes were provided for in the draft budget of the State Social Security of the service cabinet. The idea was to explicitly state that persons who have reached the required age for the "Security" sector, but do not have the necessary experience, can retire according to the order of the first category of labor. However, this text was subsequently dropped from the budget projects and is missing from their current versions, although the draft budget found time to eliminate the Covid supplements for new pensioners.