Prague, Sept 18 (CTK) – Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) will propose to increase the monthly pension by 300 crowns as he found the required 3.5 billion crowns in the budget, he said on Sunday.
The 300-crown rise in monthly pensions has been promoted by the Social Democrats (CSSD), while Babis wanted pensions to increase by 200 crowns in the past few months.
As a result, the government will deal with two proposals for raising pensions, one by Babis and one by Labour and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksova (CSSD).
Marksova welcomed it that Babis is ready to increase pensions. She said on Twitter she is glad that Babis finally remembered his old promise to increase pensions by 300 crowns, after their dispute lasting months.
Babis confirmed that he announced in March that pensions would be raised by 300 crowns in 2017. “But the money prepared was taken away by the CSSD and KDU-CSL (Christian Democrats) for an unnecessarily high increase in the budget for science and research,” Babis told CTK.
Three weeks ahead of the regional and Senate elections, the CSSD and ANO are fighting for voters and both parties want to show that its politicians are giving more money to pensioners.
Opposition leader Petr Fiala (right-wing Civic Democrats, ODS) welcomed the plan to increase pensions. “When the economy is growing, all should have a share in it,” he said.
But Fiala told journalists that the government should also pay attention to the future development of the pension system.
If the highest contribution is approved by the government, the average old-age monthly pension will increase by up to 308 crowns to 11,745 crowns. In this case, the pension would reach the level of slightly more than 40 percent of the average monthly salary.
The Czech Social Security Administration paid out 386 billion crowns in pensions in 2015. Most of the sum, 315 billion crowns, were payments of old-age pensions that were collected by 2.37 million people.
