“We call for the adoption of a national timetable of gradual increasing the pensions aimed to align those to the minimum subsistence level during the upcoming 5 years.”

To the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, the Government and the National Assembly

November 06, 2019

Yerevan

We, the members of the “Union of Senior Generation” Non-governmental organization, follow the government’s uncompromising fight against corruption in our country with enthusiasm and stand by it. We are also pleased to witness how the pillagers from the former regime, whose actions succumbed many of us and the hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens to impoverishment, are gradually brought to justice, but we believe that stolen asset recovery process is not taking place at a desirable pace.

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We consider the decision to increase minimum pension from 16.000amd to 25.000amd at the beginning of 2019 as well as the decision to raise the pension by 10% from January 2020 as a demonstration of our new government’s attention to our issues. However, we want to emphasize that this slight increase almost does not improve our standard of living and does not adjust the pensions to the minimum expenditure basket requirements, which, under the current socio-economic conditions of the Republic of Armenia, amount to around 110,000 AMD. This means that even after introducing this supplement to pensions, retirees will not be able to secure sustainable livelihoods on their own.

We have many age-related problems, as health and rehabilitation problems, as well as social, economic and cultural. We worked for more than 40 years contributing to the economic prosperity of our country and not getting paid enough, but knowing that, at least, we would spend our elderly years in secure and dignified conditions. But now we can rely only on the financial support of our children, while they are not always getting paid a fair and adequate salary. As for the elderly people, who have no children or are ignored by them, they live in extremely poor conditions. We draw your attention to the fact that large businesses bloomed mainly by exploiting the infrastructure and industrial potential created as a result of our labour.

We acknowledge the fact that a large number of pensioners (around 570.000 people) will not allow raising the pensions to the minimum subsistence threshold at once, but we call for the adoption of a national timetable of gradual increasing the pensions aimed to align those to the minimum subsistence level during the upcoming 5 years.  And by 2020, we demand to increase the pensions not by 10%, but by 30% which will cost the budget 75 billion drams instead of 25 billion drams. This amount seems reasonable and we believe that the government will be able to find funds to meet this goal, including the recovery of our assets, stolen by the former regimes as well as imposing progressive tax on big companies.

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The Union of Senior Generation (USG) was established in 2015 by the group of seniors and supporting them youth. In 2016, the USG became an observer member of the European Seniors Union (ESU) – affiliated member of the European People’s Party (EPP). It stands for consistent protection of democracy and human rights, for the protection of the rights of elderly people, and for their integration into the social, cultural, political and economic life of Armenia.

The Open Letter is open for joining.  

Members of the Union of Senior Generation, members of the Assossiation of Native Inhabitants of Yerevan, other joined organisations and citizens.

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