Chile's Pinera Presents Own Pension Fund Bill Under Pressure

Chile's President Sebastian Pinera introduced on Monday his own pension fund bill to challenge the one approved last week by the Senate, which passed a bill to allow a third withdrawal of these funds amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

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During a speech on Sunday, Pinera said that the bill promoted by the opposition  "would leave more than 5 million people without any pension savings." The president, who has tried to halt similar initiatives on two occasions, said that his project "establishes a mechanism to recover these pension savings withdrawn, thus strengthening future pensions."

However, Pinera's bill is a forced moved to tackle the widespread criticism among the political spectrum and the population after he presented a request to the Constitutional Court to prevent the third withdrawal from advancing in Congress. On April 20, Chileans took to the streets despite curfew to demonstrate against the presidential objection.

The pension fund bill sent to Congress today allows the withdrawal of up to $6,100 and a minimum of $1,400, similar to the opposition project. However, Pinera would include a state bond for $280 allocated to people who no longer have pension funds. On the other hand, he would appeal to the state and the employers to recover the fund as each one of them would contribute one percent of the income, which would go directly to supporting the private companies that have nearly complete control of the Chilean pension system.