The Dominican Association of Pension Fund Administrators (ADAFP) says that the decision to reduce the earnings of the AFPs by 50% threatens the sustainability of the system that administers Dominican workers’ savings. ADAFP president Kirsis Jaquez spoke to Diario Libre about the modifications that the deputies made to Law 87-01 on Social Security, including dropping the ceiling on the earnings that the AFPs get for administering the Pension Funds from 30% to 15%. She said that this does not translate into benefits for the system’s affiliates.
“We were surprise because we thought that this issue was still under consultation, and we were in the process of giving a technical and formal opinion. Nevertheless, we then saw the report that they declared the item to be urgent and that this modification, which outlines a drastic and significant reduction of 50% in the complementary commission that the AFPs can charge,” she said. The business group leader said that she did not know if the legislators had some technical support that enabled them to make such a significant reduction. “A 50% reduction has to involve some analysis, which is to say that it has to start from some technical event in order to do this; this is one point. But the other is that that does not resolve things. It is untrue that this sort of modification will be a significant benefit for the affiliates of the system. This is irrelevant in terms of benefits for the worker,” she pointed out. Nevertheless, she said that there are changes and improvements that could be made to Law 87-01 and that the ADAFP had suggested some when they met with the deputies and with the Superintendent of Pensions, Joaquin Geronimo.