VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski spoke to the retirees today, warning them that the Zaev Government is not maintaining the pension increases in line with either the cost of living or with its own regulations. Mickoski blasted Zaev for promising to increase the retirement incomes, saying that his current promise falls fall short of what he promised years ago.

According to the regulations and the methodology adopted by this very Government, retirement incomes should’ve gone up 1.100 denars. at the start of 2019. Instead, the new promise is a rise of just 700 denars. This undercuts the income of 300.000 retirees, Mickoski said.

Zaev’s Government is in full pre-election Santa Claus mode, promising hikes in the salaries of public sector employees, and now of the retirees. But, Mickoski said that the Government is not only ignoring its own regulations, but also the rising cost of living.

Since 2019, the Government stopped aligning the retirement incomes with the increase in the average wage. Between 2010 and mid 2017 – when Zaev assumed power – retirement incomes grew by 3 5 percent. Since mid 2017, until October 2019, retirement incomes grew by just 5 percent, less than half the average monthly increase we had before. This means that the Zaev Government is not only not hiking the pensions, but it is undercutting them, Mickoski said during his press conference.

Removing the link between the average wage and the retirement incomes, the opposition leader added, led to a cut of nearly 7.000 denars, or more than 100 EUR, for the entire 2019, for the average retiree, according to the calculations done by VMRO-DPMNE.