With deep sorrow and a faithful heart that truly believes in God’s will, I have learned that Law No. 24/2002 will expire soon. Sincerely, I offer you my condolences.
Before I get to the subject, I should make it clear that I have based this article on information I got from Qataris and non-Qataris who love this nation and all people living here, and wish the best for this country.
The new retirement law, as far as I know, has a few good aspects, such as social benefits, a housing allowance and allowances for the nature of work. But while the citizen will get all these bonuses, the pension will be reduced.
Pension is calculated according to this formula: 3.33 percent of salary multiplied by number of working years.
To make it clear, I will give an example: If a person gets a salary of QR20,000, his pension will be 3.33 percent of QR20,000 (QR666) multiplied by 20, which is QR13,320. This means the citizen will lose QR6,700.
The second issue is that the law raises the retirement age for men to 67 years and that for women to 62 years. Retirement before that age will result in deduction of 2.5 percent of the pension for each year of difference (it was only two percent in the earlier law).
The law stipulates 20 years as the minimum number of years of work and 30 years as the maximum for drawing a pension. This means that a Qatari who starts work immediately after graduation will face mandatory retirement after serving for 30 years. Certainly, his age at retirement will be less than 67 years and this will result in deductions from his pension.
The third point is, the law increases the monthly deduction, to be made from the person’s net salary and social benefits, from five percent to six percent.
Fourth, the previous deductions were calculated according to the latest salary, although he did not get the same when he worked.
Fifth, the new law steals 10 years of service from the citizen’s retirement remuneration by using the expression “more than 30 years” instead of “over 20 years”, as in the old law. This is considered theft, according to Shariah, the constitution and other laws. Imagine how much money they are deducting from tens of thousands of Qatari pensioners.
Sixth, it is a clever way to rob the dead. As is well known, deductions made from the salary go into the retirement fund. As these deductions are a citizen’s money, they fall under inheritance rules, according to religious teachings. But the new retirement law disregards the inheritance rules in Islam.
The wife and daughters get a share in the inheritance as long as they do not get married, and so do sons below 21 years of age.
The law strips the family of the deceased of their share in inheritance approved by Islam. The law stipulates that the pension will go to the mother, divorced or widowed daughters, and sons in case of inability, according to their respective shares.
It is weird that the law deprives a woman of her husband’s pension if she remarries, while the very same law gives a man the right to get his dead wife’s pension even if he remarries
four times.
In order to protect the pensions authority from aggressive subscribers who know their rights, the new law has set up a committee inside the authority to settle any disputes. The law empowers this committee to give final decisions. If anyone has a grievance they cannot go to court as courts have no power over the authority, according to the
new law.
Before I came to know of all the provisions of this law, I used to think that Qatar was very wealthy, in view of the amount of aid given to friendly countries and the huge salaries paid to non-Qataris. But I am surprised that the law shows the state to be poor as it tries to extract as much as possible from the people, ensuring at the same time that the money is seldom repaid to the citizens.
Money will be deducted from the basic salary, from the pension, according to the retirement age, and from the dead citizen’s fund.
This is what we have found so far in the new retirement law and perhaps its regulations contain greater misfortunes.
O officials! Fear God in dealing with people who trust you, and do not be too oppressive or violate the constitution. Otherwise you are being wrong to the nation and the citizen.
