The General Directorate of Retirement and Pensions in charge of the State (DGJP) has the mandate to channel the payments to the beneficiaries of each allowance as retirement, after decades of work.
But State pensions are not only granted to workers of centralized entities who have completed the minimum period of work, after 20 years of work, but others are also granted.
By law, the National Congress can approve special pensions for certain citizens, while the President of the Republic also has the legal power to grant special pensions and solidarity pensions to citizens, even if they have not worked for the State.
The fact is that, when it comes to special or solidarity pensions, the DGPJ is called upon to make a purge, so that the beneficiary has reached more than 60 years of age or that he is disabled, and that he is unemployed.
However, these purification requirements are not expressly established in the current legislation, so the DGPJ is working on the preparation of a bill that establishes it.
debugging is done
Although it is not expressly established, the head of the DGPJ, Juan Rosa, has received instructions from President Luis Abinader, who proceeds with these purges administratively, for which he is preparing a temporary application regulation, until it is established by law.
“President Abinader wants to self-regulate in this matter of special pensions, to ensure that only those who deserve them and meet the minimum requirements are beneficiaries,” Rosa said in an interview with the money.
Therefore, in the draft Provisional Regulation for the Granting of Special Pensions of the Non-Contributory Regime, taken from the draft Law of the State Distribution Pension System, a paragraph is established in Article 80 that says: “Non-contributory pensions are incompatible with any other pension or remunerative activity, public or private”. This prevents State pensioners from being, in turn, active private or public employees.
active pensions
According to statistics from the DGPJ, as of February of this year there are 180,812 pensioners, who are beneficiaries of 193,373 pensions, since there are some with more than one pension, for having served in different state entities on a special basis.
Among these pensioners are civilians who worked for the State, those with special pensions, pensioners from the National Police and those with solidarity pensions, which are the lowest amounts.
In February of this year, the payments for these pensions represented an amount of RD$2,923.6 million.
In addition to these, there are disability pensions, as well as those granted for survival to direct relatives of deceased beneficiaries. These add up to 1,347 as of February, with a monthly payment of RD$17.8 million, for a total of RD$2,941.4 million.
Applications that do not qualify
Juan Rosa, director of State Pensions, assures that the purification work is constant, because there are many people who request a special allowance, but who do not qualify because that type of pension (solidarity for RD$6,000 per month) is for people in extreme poverty. , elderly or disabled.
The official presented a list of 10,297 requests for solidarity pensions made last year, of which only 4,980 qualified, for 48%, while 52% do not meet the conditions, some because they are pensioners, others because they are not poor, they do not they meet the required age, are on the payroll as employees or because they are repeated on the list. “That’s why it’s constant debugging,” he added.