Afores and pensions, at the center of the new battle for votes

MEXICO CITY (process.com.mx).- Political parties have anticipated since this week what will be their next battle, which will be fought in the middle of the electoral campaign: the creation of the Pension Fund for Wellbeing.

This Monday it is expected that the opinion of the initiative will be discussed and eventually approved by the Security Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, with a view to it being taken to the plenary session this week.

On Friday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself proposed to accelerate a legal reform so that in May of this year the first retired workers can benefit from this fund, which would be administered by the Bank of Mexico.

The federal government argues that the Pension Fund for Wellbeing will guarantee that workers receive up to the average salary registered in the IMSS and can retire with 100 percent of their last salary.

The resources would come from the unclaimed accounts of the Retirement Fund Administrators (Afores), the Institute to Return the Stolen to the People, the liquidation of Financiera Rural and the profits of the Mayan Train and Mexicana de Aviación, among others. parastatal companies operated by Semar and Sedena, in accordance with the initiative.

“Poisoned apple”

For now, the National Action Party already issued a statement this Sunday in which it warns that Morena “is already in the year of Hidalgo” by denouncing an attempt to “steal the money” that the workers have in the Fund Administrators for the Retirement (Afores).

“The intention of Morena and the government to get their hands on the resources that Mexicans earned with the effort of their entire lives is clear. This wasteful government increased the debt, spent the money from the trusts and is now going after the Afores of the workers,” warns the PAN in a statement released this Sunday.

There, the national leader Marko Cortés anticipated that, “because it is unconstitutional and because it is a strong blow to the workers,” they will not allow the government to appropriate the people’s savings.”

In this context, he challenged President López Obrador to begin paying one hundred percent of his pension to all ISSSTE workers and described the initiative promoted by Morena as “a poisoned apple.”

“Morena is already in the year of Hidalgo and wants to steal even the workers’ Afores to give more money to the president’s children and friends,” he criticized.

He denounced the intention of the government and Morena to get their hands on resources that belong to Mexicans without clear rules and with an opaque and questionable Pension Fund for Wellbeing, putting workers’ savings at enormous risk.

“Now he intends to appropriate the money of people who have worked and saved their entire lives, in a desperate measure at the end of the six-year term with the sole purpose of having more money to spend unrestrainedly and with the smell of corruption,” concluded Cortés.

They deny “electoral measure”

Also this Sunday, the leader of the Morenoist deputies Ignacio Mier issued a statement in which he denies that the creation of the Fund is an “electoral measure” and asks opponents to read the initiative.

“The Afores are not touched: neither by the administrators nor by parties, governments, by anyone, that belongs to the workers and has a great significant value because it has to do with old age, with a decent pension for them,” said the coordinator. of the Morena Parliamentary Group.

He explained that this is a measure of social justice and dignity for more than 45 million workers who saw the consequences of the modifications to the Law of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) in 1997 and in 2006, of the Law of the Institute of Security and Social Services of State Workers (ISSSTE).

“The pension system, in the world, has always been a challenge,” he said, recalling that in 2020 he led the reform of the Afores, IMSS and ISSSTE laws in order to reduce contributions from 1,250 weeks to the workers, to 750 and grow maximum to 1 thousand. In addition to the above, the commissions paid for having an individual account in the Afores decreased significantly.

Mier himself declared on Friday that with the reform the “riding” carried out by the Afores on the resources of inactive accounts will end.

During the week, the national leader Mario Delgado considered that the right “is angry” because they will not be able to continue profiting from the abandoned accounts, which are equivalent to about 40 billion pesos.

“It is false that the government wants to take away Afore resources from Mexicans. They want to turn this into a point of attack on our movement. That is why it is worth clarifying that this initiative is the response to the reform approved by the PRI and the PAN when they had a majority. And what did they do? “They dismantled the solidarity pension system that existed in the IMSS,” he mentioned.