About 800 pensioners are given a fee as a reward for additional work in local and municipal boards of the Association of pensioners in Macedonia. Their fees range from 3,000 to 5,000 denars in basic local communities, 8,000 denars in municipal organizations, up to 15,000 denars in urban organizations and up to 20,000 denars in the presidency of the Association, accuses Grozda Danova, president of the Association of intellectuals and pensioners in Macedonia. According to her, the Association collects around nine million denars per month from membership fees, and because it doesn’t know how to spend it, it splurges it with buying cars and lunches with pastrmajlija in Shtip. These accusations were denied by the President of the Association of pensioners Dragi Argirovski, according to who, the income of pensioners are much smaller, and the rest is just slander and ignorance of the work of the Association of pensioners.
– The pension fund is on thin ice. And, paradoxically, thanks to the administration, it is being filled. On the other hand, the association charges a membership fee of 30 denars from every pensioner, although it should be voluntary. Nine million denars are collected on the basis of monthly membership, but it is spent inappropriately for personal pleasures. Therefore we ask the payment of the membership fee to be voluntarily, not mandatory – says Danova for news agency META.
However, Argirovski argues that the membership fee is not mandatory, but voluntary, and the money collected is for the pensioners and nobody can spend it.
– Well, these funds are not for our personal needs. We have dozens of offices around the country, should not they be maintained, to pay a cleaner, someone who will sit there five hours a day. The death grant is paid to the family members for about 1,200 pensioners who die in average per month from those funds – says Argirovski.
He claims that some of the fuds are meant for the socially deprived families, for the associations of disabled pensioners and the like. Argirovski said some of the funds are also meant for excursions of the pensioners that they organized, and which are free.
The pensioners are exempt from the new Law on fees that will take effect on 1st of January 2015.
Association of pensioners of Macedonia (SZPM) is an association composed of 53 associations of pensioners, voluntarily joined in the overall association for the protection and promotion of common goals and interests of pension beneficiaries in the Republic of Macedonia, for complete and unified dedication for realization of the rights for pension and disability insurance, quality health care, and for promotion of cultural, sports and humanitarian needs of pensioners.
SZPM act as an independent, non-governmental and non-political organization.
There are currently 282,734 pensioners in Macedonia.
