Almaty rallies against Marchenko's retiremen age initiative

A rally against the initiative of Kazakhstan National Bank’s Governor Gregory Marchenko to raise the women’s retirement age to 63 was held in Almaty this weekend. Besides the initiative, active members of Kazakhstan social movements and trade unions requested the state to ban private pension funds, Tengrinews.kz reports. The rally held on October 13 in a park near Sary-Arka cinema was attended by representatives and supporters of Kazakhstan’s Socialistic Movement, Leave Housing to People movement, education and research workers’ trade unions. During the protest the participants expressed their discontent with the position of the chairman of Kazakhstan National Bank Gregory Marchenko who keeps advocating the necessity to raise the retirement age in the country. “Nobody can tell us the meaning of the retirement reform and what it will be like. They are only talking about raising the retirement age. Many women find themselves in very disadvantageous positions after they turn 45,” a active member of Kazakhstan’s Socialistic Movement Larissa Boyar said. “Woman’s body is not made for hard work after a certain age. On the other hand, they give birth to children and fulfill their special mission. Is our government unable to provide people with jobs and pensions? And why don’t they discuss all the laws they adopt with people?” a representative of Senim education workers’ trade union Serik Kazakbayev said. According to the rally’s initiators, the governmental inter-authority commission breeds “anti-social amendments” and these actions prove that the country's pension system is in a deep crisis and private pension funds “are about to collapse”. “These pension innovations are called to decrease social costs in the budget. The reason (of the age reform) lays in fact that there are a lot of self-employed women who are about to retire,” the resolution adopted by the protestors called Say no to raising retirement age! Fire Marchenko! stated. According to the document that was supported by a majority of the rally’s participants, the movements want more information and a full picture of the pension reforms, they want the government to abstain from raising women’s retirement age and to ban private pension funds “that have demonstrated their complete inefficiency”. Earlier Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev instructed the country’s Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko to work out suggestions to reform the pension system. According to Marchenko, the retirement age should be leveled for men and women in Kazakhstan if for no other reason than because women of the older generation are more qualified and experienced . Later Marchenko stated that the recent statement of Kazakhstan Minister of Labor and Social Protection Serik Abdenov about unviability of raising the retirement age in Kazakhstan did not make him change his mind. In a recent interview to KazTAG he said that Kazakhstan’s pension system will go bankrupt if the retirement age isn’t raised. By Daniyar Bozov