The Ministry of Finance says that mothers of three or more children won’t be returned the previous lifelong pension amounts, since the budget law allocates €264.00 or €144.00 per allowance. The ministry says that the government isn’t authorised to abolish these benefits. The only competent institution to do this is the Constitutional Court, the ministry told Dan newspaper.
As announced after talks with representatives of the mothers in the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, the 2017 Budget Law stipulates paying reduced allowances this year.
However, after the talks the government also pledged to work on strengthening the principle of fairness in allocating social welfare payments by redefining social welfare policy and a new law, particularly considering the position of the most vulnerable categories of users, who will be additionally protected through new legislation. Also, special attention will be paid to finding adequate solutions for mothers who left their jobs and accepted allowances, the ministry said.
The mothers’ representative Zeljka Savkovic says that regardless of the Finance Ministry’s position, women will protest and demand returning their allowances to the previous level. She points out that there is enough money in Montenegro, but it has to be better allocated.
“Let’s look at salaries of officials, national pensions and unpaid taxes. So – there is money, only a small number of people have it. If the money was better allocated, everyone would have a normal life. We do not give up defending our own right, because no one else will defend it for us,” said Savkovic.
In the talks with the government, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund representatives suggested that the mothers’ allowances was burdening the budget and that the state should work on rationalising social benefits. In its document for Montenegro, WB stated that lifelong pensions for mothers of three or more children created the biggest disincentives to work engagement and fiscal pressures. It pointed out that a total of 21,444 women received this benefit by November 2016, which led to annual cost of €76m.
