Private pension funds to collect monthly contributions worth 20m euros

Mandatory pension funds could receive total contributions worth 20 million euros (72 million RON) every month when collection starts in May, Mariana Campeanu, chairperson of the National Pension and Social Security Office (CNPAS) said yesterday. CNPAS made the calculation considering the 3 million participants, and the level of salaries in September 2007. At present, only three million out of almost four million people who joined a mandatory pension fund are registered as having made actual pension contributions in September 2007. More specifically, the head of CNPAS said that only 3,059,703 participants out of the 3,991,032 who joined the 18 funds over the four-month campaign have made contributions (for September), which would mean, if the collecting process had started, over 931,000 accounts would be empty (due to contributions not coming in). The total number of empty accounts in the system could amount to around 1.5 million, a level that could be reached after up to 600,000 participants are redistributed. The lottery will take place at the end of the month, with a decision to be reached in today’s Government meeting on the redistribution procedure (proportionate or equal distribution among the funds), which will involve the 600,000 participants. “A large amount of these participants will, in turn, have empty accounts,” said the chairperson of CNPAS. In other words, the number of participants for whom pension contributions are not paid, could total over 1.5 million, from 4.5 million participants overall (after the lottery) i.e. one third.