Importance of education and public information on pensioners’ rights

BUSINESS TIMES PAGE 11 Friday, June 17 - 23, 2011

INSTITUTIONS which play an important role in the social, political and economic fields need to have public support, since statutory bodies alone, without the support of the population for which they are working for, can achieve very little.  Institutions which administer pension funds are in no sense an exception to this principle and, indeed, it may be said they  are the class of public body which needs to establish a good reputation. The principal means for them to consolidate their  reputation is by adopting the correct attitude towards beneficiaries, through quality and suitability of the services that they provide and through honest administration of their resources. However, in addition to their efficiency, which is the principal  foundation for building up a sold reputation without being demagogic or ostentatious. They have to inform the  public of their work, their programs and their achievements in the social field as well as in economic and scientific terms. Self-praise and publicity that is intended to gloss over the faults of the system have to be categorically rejected, and any  attitude that is hermetic, that provide disinformation or leads to isolation, thereby preventing a real and indispensable integration of the institution into the real situation in the country, also have to be refuted. 

Public pension organizations carry out functions that have such an impact on national life that what they are doing and how they are doing it cannot be hidden from the public. As protagonists in social development they need the support of a favourable public opinion; to achieve this support they need the give the necessary priority to the provision of information. The population as whole has a right to know what the institutions in social sector are doing, and these institutions have the duty to account for the way in which they are serving society.

This type of information is of mutual, benefit because it gives the public material for forming a judgment and enables the  institutions concerned to create opinion that is favourable to them.

In recent days, the real danger of disinformation in the field of social security has become evident in some local newspapers. Many criticisms have been directed towards the public pension sector, and its very raison d’etre is questioned. This stems from the fact that it is not supported by a solid basis of public opinion which is prepared to come to its defense at a time when its faults are more visible than its achievements. It is also frequently the case that public pension users and practitioners are unaware of its philosophy, how it works, the scope of its programs, its contributions to the
progress of the country and what it represents for the achievement of authentic social justice, without which social peace cannot exist.

Perhaps the most serious aspect of this “disinformation” is that it is to be found at all levels, including decisions makers at the state level, the man in the street and those who control the mass media. Its importance grows everyday as a result of development and technical progress made by communication through the press, through the radio, the telephone, television, satellites and the whole sophisticated world of information. 

Because insufficient information has been provided to explain the reasons for increases in the costs of social security institutions,administering social security, they have been labeled as insufficient. Indeed, without adequate
information politicians, economists, administrators and journalists have been unable to justify the fact that in various countries the sums dedicated to social security increased from 10 percent of the national gross product to 25 percent or even 30 percent, as is the case in industrialized countries like France, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Norway and Germany. 

In the world of today the importance must not be underestimated of this general feeling which has come to be called “public opinion” and which perhaps for the first time in history, showed its irresistible force in the French Revolution. One of Lous XVI’s ministers, Jacques Necker, undertook to identify public opinion and said that it strengthened or weakened all human institutions. In effect, according to the theories of the German philosopher Christian Garve, it may be said public opinion is a type of generalized consensus, the product of the majority of individuals opinion concerning a specific phenomenon or  event, and it is therefore said to be equivalent to the “national will.” Public opinion is a product or result of interaction and  communication. It is a manifestation that may sometimes be tacit, of the concepts or opinions of a certain group. Based on the precept that, in view of the importance of public opinion, it is fundamental to take into account that the institutions administering social security have to direct their information efforts towards a triple objective: those who are entitled to  benefits from pension funds or who use social security, the media, and politicians, administrators and the public in general.