Pensioners ask the UN to intervene in the critical situation

About twenty people asked the UN this Tuesday to intervene in the “critical situation” that pensioners claim to be experiencing in Venezuela, who are demanding that the government increase their pension – today at $3.5 a month – so that it is enough for them. cover “basic food needs, health and recreation.

Outside the headquarters of the international organization in Caracas, the president of the Association of United Retired and Pensioned Educators, Pedro García, said: “There is a UN rapporteur who has to do with the situation of older adults (…) “We want the United Nations to activate that rapporteurship.”

Urimare Capote, a member of the Venezuelan Retirees Committee, went with a group of people to the UN because – he said – it is the international body that “defends human rights”, by not obtaining responses from national bodies such as the Ministry of Labor, the Social Security, Parliament, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Office.

In his opinion, “there is an abandonment on the part of the State,” which is “obliged to have a social security system that covers the minimum needs of older people.”

“The economic, social and humanitarian situation of the elderly sector in Venezuela is truly dramatic,” said Capote, who recalled that more than two years ago President Nicolás Maduro decreed the last increase in the minimum wage – a reference for pensions -. which was set at 130 bolivars, which was then equivalent to 30 dollars a month, reduced today to 3.5 dollars, as a consequence of the devaluation of the national currency.

He questioned the law approved in May by Parliament that establishes a “special contribution” that employers – who have been paying since June – must give to improve pensions.

«We have not received even a half of that resource. “Where are those resources collected by the national Executive through the Seniat (National Integrated Customs and Tax Administration Service)?” he asked.

According to Parliament, this law was created to “protect” pensions against the negative effects of the “unilateral coercive measures” imposed by the United States, which the government points out as the factor preventing salary increases.

In addition to the salary, the government grants a food bonus, equivalent to 40 dollars, and the so-called “economic war” bonus for 90 dollars, as part of a phase of resistance to the crisis that – the Executive insists – generates international sanctions. .

In this regard, García stated that she does not believe that the sanctions “are the fundamental cause of the lack of resources in Venezuela”, while Capote stated that they do not want “discretionary bonuses”, which – for her – represent a form of “social control.”.