Rwandan MPs at a previous parliamentary session. A section of the
legislators want the retirement age reduced to 55 from the current 65,
terming the current settings “unfair to fresh graduates”. PHOTO | CYRIL
NDEGEYA | NATION
A section of Rwandan lawmakers has called on the government to
lower the retirement age “to give a chance to unemployed Rwandan youth,”
as the country plans to amend its labour law.
MPs want the retirement age reduced to 55 from the current 65, terming the current settings “unfair to fresh graduates”.
“Young
people are graduating at 21 and their chances of securing jobs remain
minimal,” said member of parliament Théobald Mporanyi.
According
to the lawmakers, people with more than 30 years in employment should
be retired. The Ministry of Labour termed the recommendation “good” but
remained very cautious on making a commitment.
“It is
not possible to make a decision on such a matter without the involvement
of the Ministry of Finance and the pension fund,” said Fanfan
Kayirangwa Rwanyindo, the Minister of Public Service and Labour.
'No effect'
However, according to some analysts, the retirement age does not
have the effect of creating employment for young people that some MPs
attach to it.
“The labour market does not operate on a
fixed basis. There are no defined number of jobs that would see the
retirement of older employees resulting in the hiring of the exact
number of young people,” said Bercar Nzabagerageza, an economic analyst.
He
added that there should be flexibility in implementing the retirement
age, to allow those who want to go for early retirement at 55 to do so,
while maintaining the compulsory retirement age at 65.
The
current retirement age in the country was increased to 65 from 55 in
the 2009 labour law amendments, in a move that analysts said aimed at
relieving the country’s pension scheme from a big number of
beneficiaries and improving the fund’s long-term solvency.
Considering
this experience, analysts say the request to lower the retirement age
goes against economic theories, which suggest that lowering the
retirement age is very risky for countries with increasing life
expectancy — a category Rwanda falls under.
A 2017
Population Projections report by the National Institute of Statistics of
Rwanda put the life expectancy at birth of Rwandans at 66.6 years.
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