By RFPosted on 20-04-2019Modified on 20-04-2019 at 12:10

Gabonese pensioners are angry. Initially, a statement announcing the return of the quarterly payment of pensions, paid every month since 2014, as early as May. Thursday, April 18, they organized a "sit-in" in front of the pension fund, but without finding a good solution.

Despite their advanced age, dozens of pensioners gathered at the end of the week at the headquarters of the National Social Security Fund of Gabon, the CNSS, where they made noise to be heard by the authorities. All are angry at the announcement of the payment of their pension once a quarter.

" We can not stand for three months. We are old, there are diseases, "worries one participant. " I suffer from tension, from diabetes. Will the disease wait for three months? I do not agree, not at all, "said a woman, also present at the sit-in organized Thursday.

The last monthly payment will be on May 5th. Retirees will then wait until August 5th to get their money back. A third person adds, " I'm sick. You can not tell me to wait three months. We would have to receive monthly payments again. "

Pension fund sends the ball back to politics

Pensions in Gabon have almost always been paid once a quarter. But in 2014, the country bathed in petrodollars, Libreville had decided to move to a monthly payment without changing the law on this subject.

Nicole Assélé, director general of the CNSS, has taken this law out of the archives. " The law is tough, but force remains the law, " she explains. If today the politicians decide that we must pay monthly, that we put the legal framework, she asks. And it's not just paying monthly, it's an entire organization; because we will have to ask companies to also contribute monthly ... "

Prosperous a few years ago, the National Social Security Fund is in ruins. The reserves have been squandered. The state debt amounts to several billion and the risks of bankruptcy are palpable.

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