Participants of hearings noted that pension provision is the key component of the system of social protection of population of both current pensioners and working citizens.
Pension system accumulates significant financial resources at the expense of allocations from mandatory contributions of enterprises, citizens, State Budget costs, funds of social insurance and other revenues.
It was stressed that under article 2 of the Law “On Mandatory State Pension Insurance”, the system of pension provision in Ukraine is composed of three levels, of which only the first and the third function today.
According to the information provided by the Ministry of Social Policy, the number of persons receiving pensions has equaled to the number of persons paying fees to the Pension Fund.
The World Bank for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova states that for the past ten years, there were observed quite significant situational increases to pension. As a result of such a policy, the state spends a lot on pension provision today (approximately 16% of GDP in 2010). These expenses are almost twice as a big as expenses for pension provision in the countries of the European union (6,7% of GDP – in the Great Britain; 10,2% of GDP - in Germany; 9,4% of GDP – in Russia).
Annually, the amount of donations from the State Budget to the revenue sector of the Pension Fund increase. As of today, it has reached its critical limit.
In 2012 the real budget deficit of the Pension Fund amounted to UAH 27,2 bln and the amount of outstanding loans of the previous years – to UAH 37,2 bln. Cost cutout, reached in 2012 due to introduction of the Law “On Measures of Legislative support to reforming of the pension system”, has amounted to UAH 2,6 bln, of which UAH 1,2 bln was a cost cutting received as a result of increased retirement age for women.
Rapporteurs noted that the issue of financing of payments that contradict the principles of pension insurance are still to be addressed.
The World Bank noted that pension expenditure and deficit in Ukraine are one of the highest in the world and in the region of Europe and the Central Asia.
In regard to the third level, it was noted that the system of non-state pension insurance has long ago been enacted in Ukraine but was not widely spread, due to absolute distrust of average Ukrainians to state financial institutes.
According to the Single state registrar of Ukrainian enterprises and organizations, there were 74 non-state pension funds as of January 1, 2013 (96 – in 2007; 83 – in 2009; 80 – in 2010; and 77 – in 2011).
Participants of hearings drew attention to the fact that the second level of pension insurance, i.e. the accumulating system of mandatory state pension insurance, has significant potential to positively influence socio-economic development of the state.
The Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine noted that there are certain social and economic risks connected with introduction of the second system level.
Scientist of this Institute stressed that introduction of the second level implies privatization of a part of public pension system.
Rapporteurs noted that systemic and balanced organizational measures should precede introduction of the second level of a pension system.