Allow me, in the beginning, to thank Almighty God for blessing our generous country with rulers who love us as much as we love them and have much loyalty to this country and its people.
I have learnt that a special committee has been formed to amend the draft retirement law.
The fact is that I was excited about this commendable action by the government. The people, however, were divided between a majority group that thanked and supported the government not issuing any law that might affect people’s interests without prior and cautious review, and the minority group, including myself, that said let the draft come out and then it can be amended if it is not up to expectations.
The government has recruited numerous experts and legal advisers who are paid to safeguard the interests of the people by ensuring that laws do not diminish the rights of the citizens.
Amending laws, for those who do not know, takes much time and effort: two years at least. You can imagine how many rights will be lost during this period. The new retirement law offers many advantages. These advantages, however, are nullified if the foundations of the law are weak.
Having read the bill and in my desire to be positive and cooperative with the competent authorities, I suggest the following amendments to some of the articles:
Article No. 10 will negatively affect the private sector because it links the obligations of companies to the General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority with their economic activities. Instead of unnecessary and unrealistic complications, a single mechanism to hold companies accountable is supposed to be set up.
The proposed version of the article should stipulate that the commercial registration of a company should not be renewed unless the company produces a certificate that shows it has fulfilled its obligations to the authority. The competent authority should make sure that companies cannot resume their activities unless they pay the authority’s dues.
There are a number of articles that mention, “from the subscriber’s account from the date of his work”, and this should be changed to “from the monthly salary of the subscriber’, because six percent of the current salary could be equal to or more than 60 percent of his previous salary, which is not fair.
Article No. 37, has many complications that will lead to deduction of much of retirees’ pensions. The proposed amendment is to take into account years of service regardless of age, and I hope that it will be amendment as follows: “Pensions are calculated on the basis of 80 percent of the minimum years of service (20 years), where two percent should be added to every year until pensions reach 100 percent of the salary.”
Article No. 42 should be a mended as follows: “Taking into consideration what has been stipulated in article No. 37, pension should be reduced by two percent, of the difference between the minimum years of service and the actual years of services”.
The bill, in many of its articles, does not determine where the shares of widows and daughter will go if they get married, and it is better if it is stated: “Widows’ and daughters’ shares will be transferred to other inheritors of the pensioner”. Experts on inheritance should be consulted on whether widows and daughters deserve to receive a share of the pension after they get married.
It is important for retirement to be linked to the years of service, not age.
According to many studies on retirement laws and studies on Qatari society, retirement must be after a minimum service of 20 years and maximum of 30 years. However, considering the small population, retirement should not be made mandatory. Citizens should have a right to continue serving as long as they are able to meet their professional obligations.
The other thing is that the years of women’s service, which need to be reduced to 15 years of minimum service and 25 years of maximum service, need not be made compulsory.
Moreover, the law does not mention how the value of subscriptions can be calculated. There is an increase in housing and work nature allowances. These allowances are determined on the basis of the period of service of 15 years (which means a retroactive deduction).
The state is supposed to pay these subscriptions for subscribers for two reasons: first, the government has cancelled the end of service allowance if the service does not exceed 20 years. Second, the government receives large amounts of money, for the previous subscribers’ service periods, which are more than the salaries they received.
It is also important that the Board of Directors must be brought back to avoid putting fateful decisions in the hands of one man. The minster should head the board, which should have 10 experienced and competent members, half of them active employees and the rest retirees.
In conclusion, the aforementioned amendments are the minimum in order to make the law suitable to the interests of the citizens. I have confidence that the government seeks the best for us. I hope that the additional one percent should not be deducted retroactively.
