The scheme announced by the government to encourage pensioners to borrow money against their property is throwing an extra burden on pensioners and their inheritors, the Nationalist Party said in a statement.
The scheme was introduced instead of the government making an attempt to address the inadequacy of the pensions system, spokesmen Mario de Marco and Claudio Grech said.
We are living in a country where one in five pensioners is living in poverty or is at risk of poverty, and the numbers keep on rising. The government’s solution is for pensioners to borrow money, leaving their children to pay for the debt accumulated.
Pensioners today needed money not to go abroad but to buy essential items, including food and medicine. The government has lost all sense of social justice and does not care about vulnerable people, the PN said.
In reply, the Labour Party said that the PN is not credible when it speaks about pensions. The present govbernment has a plan spread over various initiatives in a bid to strengthen pensions, which it had raised year after year,
The equity release announced yesterday is another incentive, and is totally voluntary. The priovate sector had already implemented it and the government is seeking to regulatrise it in the best interests of pensioners.
Pensioners have every right to do what they like with their property, the PL said.
Another measure was the Bonds 62+ that once again had generated great interest among elderly people, the PL said.