Ukraine Names Yevhen Kapinus Head of National Pension Fund

Yevhen Kapinus

The head of Ukraine’s pension fund, Oleksiy Zarudnyi, has been dismissed by the country’s cabinet of ministers and has been replaced by Yevhen Kapinus, a former state secretary of the country’s finance ministry.

Upon the appointment, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman told Kapinus to conduct an audit of the pension fund, and ensure the stable functioning of the pension system, according to a Ukrainian government website.

“It’s a big job,” Groysman told Kapinus, “but you have four months.”

Groysman said the two most important tasks for Kapinus are for the pension fund to be ready to increase pensions to military retirees beginning Jan. 1, and to conduct a large-scale revaluation of pensions to all other categories of pensioners.

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“The task of the pension fund is not only to pay pensions to pensioners. We must take care of future retirees,” said Groysman, who added that he believed Kapinus “will bring order to the pension system, and the work of the pension fund will be public and constructive.”

In July, Groysman blamed Zarudnyi, though not by name, for a delay in pension payments earlier this year that was due to a cash deficiency. He said it was the “personal responsibility” of the pension fund’s leadership to fulfill obligations to pensioners in time. He also launched an investigation into the matter.

“In case the delays are repeated, I won’t forgive,” said Groysman at the time. “To create additional problems for people is inadmissible.”

According to a 2017 report from the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s pension system is in pretty bad shape.

“While economists often disagree about many things in Ukraine, they find agreement on one issue: Ukraine’s pension system is inadequate and unsustainable,” said the report. “If nothing changes, the pension fund will become increasingly financially unsustainable and will fail to provide living pensions to Ukraine’s aging population.”

The report said that like many countries, Ukraine has a shrinking labor force and an aging population, which places a lot of financial stress on a pension system. However, it said, “Ukraine is one of the last countries in Europe to face up to these challenges and reform its pension system,” adding that the basic structure of the pension system has not changed much since Soviet times.

The IMF said that on average, Ukrainians retire much earlier than workers in other countries in the region, with the average age of retirement 58 ½ years for men, and just under 56 years for women. This is compared to an EU average of 63.6 years for men and 62.6 years for women.

As a result, Ukraine has more than 12 million pensioners, which is close to 30% of its total population. The IMF report also said that the ratio of contributors to retirees is almost 1 to 1, which is among the lowest ratios in the world.

Tags: Oleksiy Zarudny, Pension, Ukraine, Yevhen Kapinus

The pension age for women in the UK has risen in-line with men, and a lot of Brits are not happy about it.

As of Tuesday, UK women will now have to wait until age 65 to collect their retirement benefits, equal to their male counterparts. The eligibility age will again rise in October 2020, to 66, and again to 67 between 2026 and 2028. Parliament is also considering increasing the age to 68 by 2039, as suggested by a study group.

Women could previously retire at age 60.

Plans to equalize the benefits age have been around since 1995, and measures in 2011 accelerated the bump, but letters concerning the changes were mailed very late to recipients both times.

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In addition to longevity, the government has insisted the move is also a step toward gender equality, but thousands of protesters and activist groups such as the Women’s Equality Party and the WASPI (Women Against State Pension Inequality) aren’t buying it.

“These changes to the state pension age for women were cynical exercises by both a Tory and a coalition government to raise £30bn from 3.8 million women,” Sophie Walker, the Women’s Equality Party leader, told the Guardian at a protest march to Parliament last month.

“Many of these women didn’t find out about the pension changes until they literally went to get their pension or finally got sent an official letter 16 years after the change had been made, leaving them with no time to make alternative financial arrangements,” she said.

The increase in pension age requirements have not only angered many British women, but politicians as well.

In a blog post, Ros Altmann, a former minister of the state department for work and pensions, wrote about how the change will do more harm than good.

“Equal pension ages but not pension equality: Women have always had lower pensions than men, leaving them at greater risk of later life poverty, especially as women tend to live longer than men,” she wrote. “An increasing proportion of women are single and cannot rely on a partner’s pension for retirement income.”

The average life expectancy for people in the UK is about 80.1 years, according to the World Bank.

“The decision to equalize the State Pension age between men and women was made over 20 years ago and achieves a long-overdue move towards gender equality,” a Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson told iNews. “As we are all living considerably longer than when pensions were introduced, we need to adjust the pension age to ensure the sustainability of the state pension now and for future generations.”

Tags: Pension, Ros Altmann, UK, UK Pension Equalization