Maldives Pension Administration Office (MPAO) has said that the increase in the number of people receiving double pension may result in having to cease the pension scheme in the future.

The Pension Act obligates provision of pension funds to every retired person. In addition, pension is also provided under the law on institutions.

MPAO’s CEO Mohamed Hussain Manik said today that several individuals are provided funds under more than one pension scheme, resulting in more than Rf800 million being spent on pension schemes this year. This figure will reach Rf1 billion by 2020, and Rf2 billion by 2022.

“For example, we provide retirement privileges, privileges to Judges following retirement, special privileges to MNDF – which means that some people are entitled to more than one pension scheme. Several people receive more money as pension than they earned when they were employed. We may be able to do this until next year, but after that we will run out of funds,” he said.

Manik said that the problem of double pension must be solved as soon as possible, and that it will be brought to the attention of all relevant institutions.

He added that the purpose of creating a Pension Act and assigning a separate office to deal with pension schemes is lost due to the issue of double pension.

“We are preparing to inform Finance Ministry and other institutions of this problem. Unless this is solved soon, the outcome will be dreadful,” he said.

Another challenge faced by MPAO is limits on utilizing pension funds to make investments.

A total of Rf50 million is received by the pension fund monthly, which has about Rf1 billion in its account. About 71,000 employees contribute to this fund.