At a meeting with senior citizens in Korça, attended by Prime Minister Edi Rama, Hado focused on the measures the government has taken to increase pensions while discussing the pension scheme with them.

“The government has lowered the retirement age for miners from 60 to 55 years and has also reduced the required years of work to qualify for a miner’s pension to 12 and a half years underground and a total of 30 years of work,” Hado stated.

According to him, in addition to this, in 2019, the government approved a law to provide all miners, oil workers, and metallurgists with supplemental pensions without requiring them to pay extra contributions.

“The same applies to military personnel, who can retire at 47 years for men and 42 years for women, with only 12 years of service for women and 15 years for men,” he continued.

Hado noted that Korça is among the regions with the highest number of insured years of employment.

“Therefore, pensions in Korça are somewhat higher than in other regions, as the people of Korça have self-financed their insured years of work for the purpose of pension,” Hado stated.

He urged emigrants working abroad to pay voluntary contributions or, if they own land, to pay contributions as self-employed individuals in agriculture, emphasizing that the benefits for receiving pensions would be substantial.

Hado informed that the government is working to sign a social insurance agreement with Greece, aiming to ensure that all those who have worked in Greece can have those years recognized for their pension. However, he stated that until this agreement is in place, it is essential for those working abroad to pay contributions.

Hado said that the phenomenon of underreporting payroll should come to an end.

“Anyone who pays a contribution based on the minimum wage will receive a minimum retirement pension. It may seem like they gain 5 lek today, but they will lose much more in the future,” he said.

/sm/