“With these starvation pensions, we don’t even know how we’re supposed to eat,” stressed the vice president of the National Union of Retired Workers of the Venezuelan Social Security Institute (IVSS).
By Vanessa Davies
Carlos Julio Rivera, vice president of the National Union of Retired Workers of the Venezuelan Social Security Institute (IVSS), says he continues to be astonished by what is happening to Venezuela’s currency, because it never seems to catch a break. But he does more than express concern: he also puts forward several proposals that he believes could stop the bolívar’s decline.
“The Executive cannot keep allowing the Central Bank to devalue the currency,” Rivera argued. “People talk about patriotism, but in the middle of this crisis, how can the Central Bank continue to devalue the bolívar, our national currency? How much longer are we going to accept the fact that the authorities at the Central Bank of Venezuela keep devaluing the bolívar?”
Rivera led an assembly of retirees and pensioners on Wednesday at Juan Pedro López Square, outside the Central Bank of Venezuela in downtown Caracas. Participants discussed the urgent needs facing this segment of the population after the San Juan earthquakes. Salaries and pensions remained among the meeting’s most recurring topics.
“With these starvation pensions, we don’t even know how we’re supposed to eat or pay for medical treatment,” he said.
—What measures are you proposing?
—The government needs to understand that it must strengthen the bolívar, or introduce a new currency—but not another one like the so-called bolívar fuerte, which never truly existed. That’s what we want.
No indexation
Although social organizations do not have precise figures on the number of retirees and pensioners affected by the earthquakes, Rivera emphasized that this population has not escaped the crisis. Official data report more than 5,000 deaths overall, while authorities have not released confirmed figures for the number of missing people.
During the assembly, Rivera said he visited the Office of the Vice Presidency to ask about one of the pending bonus payments, seek answers to official requests submitted in May, and remind authorities that if the Executive does not pay the indexed “war bonus” as required by decree, “then it owes us that money.”
“They do not pay us the war bonus with indexation. They pay it however the government wants,” he criticized.
According to the IVSS, Venezuela has 5.8 million pensioners. The monthly pension remains 130 bolívares, although pensioners also receive a bonus equivalent to $70.
